


The Prodigal Socialites Return

by mylittlewomen



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 44,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26744059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylittlewomen/pseuds/mylittlewomen
Summary: What if Blair Waldorf truly let Chuck Bass go and wholeheartedly committed to a new life with Prince Louis in Monaco? What if Serena van der Woodsen started to focus on herself and traded Manhattan for Malibu?It's been more than seven years after the season four finale of Gossip Girl and New York City hasn't been the same. With their "it girl" living lavish in California and Park Avenue Princess fulfilling her royal duties in Europe, the City That Never Sleeps hasn't had its fair share of drama in quite a few years.Rufus and Lily Humphrey maintain a strong relationship as their children finally start to act like family, Dan Humphrey is a successful screenplay writer, and two of New York's most eligible bachelors, Nate Archibald and Chuck Bass, are both ready to make the ultimate commitment to their respective long-term girlfriends.Everyone seems to finally be leading happy lives, but will the return of the Upper East Side's most infamous socialites throw a wrench in the harmony?And who am I? That's one secret I'll never tell...you know you love me. XOXO, Gossip Girl.
Relationships: Carter Baizen/Serena van der Woodsen, Chuck Bass/Blair Waldorf, Nate Archibald/Serena van der Woodsen, Rufus Humphrey/Lily Rhodes
Comments: 68
Kudos: 80





	1. From Golden Yellow to Blushing Rose

Serena glances at the large calendar that adorns her desk, coffee rings stain its surface and notes of all colors are found in nearly every white space. _Wednesday, November 21, 2018._

Serena focuses her attention back to the laptop in front of her when the date finally processes in her head. _Tomorrow is Thanksgiving._

Shifting papers to the side and picking up folders, she frantically searches for her phone to dial her mother. Something begins to let out a familiar sound as the desk vibrates. She moves a letter tray to expose her cracked iPhone. She doesn’t even check to see who is calling before answering. “Hello?”

“You would think your daughter would answer the phone with a bit more excitement when she sees her mother is calling.” Serena drops her elbows to the desk, golden hair consuming her face. Her free hand cradles her forehead.

“Mom! I was just about to call you.”

“Well, looks like I beat you to it.” Serena lets out a light chuckle. “Listen, Serena, dear, I was calling to confirm you’re coming tomorrow. I texted you a few weeks ago and you said you would get back to me.” A sigh escapes Serena’s mouth as she stands up from her desk and walks over to the window. She watches the waves rise and fall before they finally die and inch across the sand. Tourists walk on the beach wearing shorts and open-toed shoes while true Californians avoid the beach until springtime. “Serena?”

“Yes, sorry!” Serena shifts her attention from the beach back to her mother. “Listen, Mom, I am really sorry, but I’m still on the west coast.” She lifts up her left wrist to check the time. It’s almost three in the afternoon. “I meant to tell you I missed my flight and can’t get another one. It’s one of the biggest travel days of the year, right?” She lets out a nervous laugh, but Lily doesn’t reciprocate. They both knew that Serena never booked a flight in the first place. It was so far down in her mind that it never made her to-do list.

“I had a feeling you might say something like that.” Serena awaits her mother’s next statement and prepares to be scolded for missing yet another holiday. “That’s why I already sent the private jet to Los Angeles.”

“What?” Serena tries to find the words to process exactly what her mother just said.

“If it hasn’t landed yet, it will shortly. I know that you’re 27 years old and I cannot boss you around anymore, but you will be on that plane and you will be in New York City by midnight. Do you understand?” Serena took a gulp.

“Yes, Mom, I understand.” Serena turned around and looked at the mess that was her workspace. “I love you, can’t wait to see you, bye!” Serena hung up before her mother could say anything else.

She immediately dialed her assistant. “Noah? It’s Serena.”

“Hi, Seren-”

“I checked my schedule, so I know I don’t have anything until Monday. If you need anything, don’t call the house. I’m going to New York for a few days, so make sure you call my cell.”

“Do you need me to try and get you a ticket? It might be difficult considering everyone is traveling toda-”

“I’ve got it covered, don’t worry about it.” Serena was about to hang up when she realized she had one more thing left to say. “Happy Thanksgiving, Noah!” He did not have the chance to wish his boss a happy holiday, for Serena hung up as soon as her assistant’s name left her mouth.

Serena left her home office and began sprinting around the apartment. She grabbed a few bags of luggage and began stuffing them with clothes. Thinking she was just about done, she remembered that she would be in the north east corner of the country and not on the sunny beaches of Southern California. She grabbed whatever warm clothing she had and dashed out of her front door. About to pull out her phone and order a car, she realized her mother was one step ahead of her.

“Miss van der Woodsen?” Serena’s face turned from golden yellow to blushing rose.

“Hi, yeah, that’s me.” She hopped into the car and set off on her way to the airport, a private jet patiently waiting on the tarmac to take her back home.


	2. It's Just a Pie

“Happy Thanksgiving, Miss Serena! It is lovely to see you!” Vanya’s friendly and familiar face flashed Serena a welcoming smile as he opened the large glass door. She waltzed in as if the lobby was a runaway, her luggage following closely behind. “Is this all you brought with you? Forgive me, but it does not seem like much.” Serena let out a little sigh. 

“Sadly, I am only staying for a few days. I have to be back in Los Angeles before Monday.” Vanya frowned, but Serena decided to steer the conversation to a lighter subject matter. “How are Dorota and the kids?” His face lit up at the mention of his family. 

“Oh, they are wonderful. Dorota is happy taking care of Miss Penelope and her little one.” Serena smiled slightly. When Blair moved to Monaco seven years ago, Dorota could not accompany her. She floated around the Upper East Side for a few years until Penelope Shafai started a family with her husband. He was nearly finished with medical school when she was still an undergraduate, marrying shortly after Penelope earned her degree. Blair gave her blessing for Dorota to work for her former minion, thus she has been by Penelope’s son’s side for at least three years now. “Enjoy your holiday, Miss van der Woodsen.” 

Serena entered the elevator and started making her way up to the penthouse she used to call home. Serena scoffed at the thought of her mother and Dan’s father still being married after all of these years. The elevator dinged and Serena took a breath. She stepped out and had barely rounded the corner before she was ambushed by her family. Lily, Rufus, Eric, and Jenny engulfed her in a hug. Finally letting go of her, they stepped back and welcomed Serena into the apartment. She looked around and realized how different things were. The kitchen had been remodeled, the furniture was all new, and she didn’t recognize a single painting on the wall. “Jeez, is my room still in the same place?” 

They spent the rest of the evening talking in the living room. Serena spoke about her life as a highly sought after socialite in Los Angeles, Jenny discussed the ever changing world of the fashion industry, and Eric explained the highs and lows of the European real estate business. 

Before they knew it, it was well into the next day and it was time to call it a night. Rufus and Lily made their way up the stairs as Jenny and Eric shuffled to their respective bedrooms. Serena wandered into her childhood bedroom, half expecting it to be unrecognizable. Despite everything else changing, it seemed her room was the exact same. The same headboard sat behind the bed, the same lamps adorned the nightstands. She wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a pair of shoes in the closet sitting in the exact same position she left them. 

She lifted her right hand and delicately pulled the curtains from the window, taking in a look of the city she left behind. She let out a sigh as she let the curtain fall, turning around and flopping onto her bed without even changing into a pair of pajamas. 

\----

The aroma of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and more wafted into Serena’s bedroom. The scents found their way to her nose, waking her up better than any alarm or person ever could. She stretched her arms above her head and flipped over in the bed to face the window. A stream of early morning sunlight shone straight into her eyes, for the curtain she pulled aside before she went to bed had not properly closed. 

She jumped out of bed and headed straight for her suitcase. Digging for her toiletry bag, she finally found it. She stripped off yesterday’s clothes and hopped into a steaming shower, careful not to get her blonde locks wet. Dry shampoo should be able to hold her over until she gets back to California. 

She turned off the water and wrapped her body in a towel. The cheap travel toothbrush she picked up in the airport would suffice for now. Whatever lotion happened to be hiding under the sink would be the one she’d use for the next few days. Quickly, she did her makeup. She could have told anyone it only took her five minutes and they would never believe her. She looked like she had her own personal makeup artist and hair stylist following her wherever she went. 

Unhappy with the clothes she grabbed in a hurry back at her apartment, she decided to look in her old closet. Just as she guessed, old pairs of shoes littered the ground. She grabbed a pair of black pumps and set them aside. Lifting her head to observe the clothes, her eyes scanned the rack. A knit mini-dress caught her eye. It was perfect for a November day in New York City. She grabbed a pair of tights, slipped them over her shining legs, and pulled the dress over her head, careful not to mess with her hair and makeup. The pumps slid on her foot without trouble and she was ready to exit her bedroom. 

Clicking on the ground as she made her way down the hallway, Serena caught sight of the time. _1:18 pm._ Dinner would be starting shortly. Lily was making her way down the stairs, her hair as icy blonde as ever. She looked stone cold, but everyone knew she had a big heart. 

“Serena, darling, I’m so glad you’re awake.” They approached each other and Lily pecked her daughter on the cheek. “I didn’t want to wake you. I figured your body would still be on California time.”

“The food woke me up.” They looked to the kitchen, cooks fluttering around the room. “It smells delicious, Mom.” Lily smiled and thanked her. Serena looked around and noticed a large table was being set in the middle of the living room. She was about to inquire about who else they would be expecting when the elevator dinged. 

“Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!” Dan took off his coat to expose a blazer underneath. His jaw was sharp, his curly hair perfectly messy. He handed his coat to a waiting maid and made eye contact with Serena. “Serena van der Woodsen? On the east coast?” They both chuckled as they went in for a quick embrace. They let go of each other and stepped back, no feelings lingering between them. _Finally._ After all, they had been step-siblings longer than they had been lovers. 

“Dan, it’s so great to see you! It’s been so long, what, six months? A year?” Dan slightly shook his head. 

“Try four.” _Four years?_ Serena let out a scoff of disbelief. 

“No, it can’t be.” At this point, Rufus had joined Lily downstairs and Eric and Jenny were next to each other on the couch. 

“You shouldn’t be surprised I practically forced you to get on that plane yesterday, Serena,” Lily muttered. She crossed her legs and leaned into her husband. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and caressed her knee with his free hand. 

“Yeah, but I’ve been back to New York plenty of times since moving to LA.”

“Oh, sure, but can you honestly tell me the last time we were all in the same room?” He raised his eyebrows and joined his parents on the couch, his hair bouncing as he flopped down. “But what does it matter? We’re all together now, so let’s enjoy the day.” Everyone nodded their head in agreement and they all congregated on the couches. They all listened to the different premises for books that Dan was currently working on, Rufus and Jenny poking fun at him every now and again. 

Serena looked over to the large dining table and counted the namecards. _Eight._

“Dan, did you speak with Nate?” Lily’s question snapped Serena back to the conversation. 

“Yeah.” Dan gulped down some of his water. “He and Karolina are indeed coming.” He leaned back on the couch and sprawled his arms across the top. 

“Set two more places at the table, please. Thank you.” _Ten._ _Who are the other two people coming?_ “Have you met Karolina, Serena?” Serena thought for a moment before shaking her head. “Oh, she is quite charming. I think you’ll really like her. She’s pre-law, you know. She’s considering attending Stanford, she was recently accepted there. You should talk to her about California.”

“I’d be more than happy to steer her in the Pacific coast direction,” Serena replied, a slight laugh escaping her lips. The conversation continued and Serena thought about the two seats at the table she could not account for. Her thoughts were interrupted by Lily’s discussion with one of the cooks. 

“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Lily began as the cook walked back to the kitchen. “It seems as if there has been a mix-up and there will be no pumpkin pie for desert this year.” Everyone let out a dejected sigh. _How could you not have a Thanksgiving staple?_

“I’ll go out and pick one up.” Serena quickly stood up to go grab her wallet and coat. 

“Oh, Serena, please, it’s just a pie,” Lily pleaded. 

“It’s okay, Mom, really. I’ll be back before dinner even starts, I promise.” Serena winked and slid on her coat. She skipped to the elevator and waved before she walked into it. “I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” 

Serena breathed in the crisp, cold air as she exited the building. For a moment she debated on whether or not to take a cab or walk, but decided that she shouldn’t risk delaying dinner and hailed a cab. She entered the bakery, bought the last two pumpkin pies, left a hefty tip in the glass jar, and was out within minutes. Because of the great time she was making, she decided to walk home. 

That was one thing she missed about New York. Everything is right there. You can walk, run, or take a taxi and you’ll be there before you know it. In Los Angeles she was constantly stuck in the back of a car, for it was tough to find places within walking distance. She considered getting her driver’s license when she moved out west, but decided against it. She figured she would stick with what she was used to and let someone else drive her around for the rest of her life.

She made good time walking and was sure she was going to make it back to the penthouse with plenty of time to spare. She walked in through the glass doors and started making her way to the elevator when she saw someone familiar looking sitting in the lobby. Their back was facing Serena, but they became much clearer to Serena as she approached. A headband sat atop a head of long, wavy brunette hair. They had impeccable posture and smelled faintly of Chanel No. 5. 

_“Blair?”_


	3. What a Bastard

She swiftly stood up from her spot in the chair and faced Serena, confirming it was, indeed, her long lost best friend. “What are you doing here?” Serena nearly dropped the pies as she went in to give Blair a hug. “What’s going on? Are you here to surprise me with news? Are you pregnant? Oh, B, please tell me that you’re pregnant!” She let go of Blair and noticed she was less than chipper. 

“Oh, quite the contrary, Serena.” She glanced down at her old friend’s left hand and noticed the elegant Harry Winston engagement ring was absent from her finger. “It’s over.” Blair brushed her hands on the back of her dress and sat back down. Serena sat next to her and placed one hand on top of the other of Blair’s right knee. 

“Over?” She had a look of confusion on her face. _Was she talking about her marriage?_

“With Louis.” Serena did not know quite what to say. She wished she could empathize with her friend, but she hasn’t exactly experienced a divorce. At least, not yet, anyway. Blair tried to continue to speak, but her voice cracked and she couldn’t get any words out for a few moments. “I’m sorry for just showing up here, Serena. I was going to call you and tell you everything. I landed this morning and I saw that you were in New York, so I figured you’d be here with Lily and the rest of your family for the holiday. I don’t even know how I got here, Serena. I just found myself sitting in the lobby waiting for you. The doorman said you’d stepped out to quickly grab something so I decided to wait. I’m really sorry, I can go. I shouldn’t have barged in on you like thi-”

“Blair, _stop._ ” A pair of chestnut eyes met a pair of ocean ones looking right back. “You could never be a burden, especially when you’re on this continent.” They both laughed as Blair wiped a few tears from her eyes. “And besides, what is Thanksgiving without Blair Waldorf?”

“Thank you, Serena. You don’t know how much that means to me.” Blair leaned in and squeezed her best friend, the strong aroma of lavender dry shampoo filling her nose. 

“What happened? I’ve been keeping up with you guys. You seemed happier than ever!” Serena let go as Blair let out a sarcastic chuckle. “Tell me everything. Start from the beginning.”

“Well,” Blair began. She hadn’t exactly told anyone about her marital troubles before. She had been wanting to tell someone for years, but she felt pressured to keep her mouth shut and maintain a façade fit for royalty. “Things were fine in the beginning. Actually, things were...kind of perfect.” She fiddled with her fingers in her lap. “I thought things were going to stay perfect. Better than that, I expected things to be _more_ than perfect. The wedding was a dream, as you know, and after the honeymoon, I felt like I had truly made the right decision for once. We were constantly busy with appearances for the first couple of years, but I wasn’t expecting it to be like that forever. I thought I would be able to come back home every once in a while, but th-”

“This is the first time you’ve been back to New York in more than seven years.”

“Yes, exactly.” Blair rolled her eyes at the thought of her not being able to return to the city she was born and raised in. She lifted her dainty eyes to her eyes in an effort to curb tears from falling. The last thing she wanted was wet mascara running down her cheeks on her favorite holiday. “I wanted to be a princess for the longest time, Serena, but it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be. I turned from a fairytale to a nightmare, truly. I didn’t even have to say anything, he knew I was unhappy, but he also knew I wouldn’t leave him.”

“I’m shocked, Blair. I really am. The two of you seemed perfect. If I’m being honest, I would have thought you would have had children by now,” Serena admitted. Blair took a breath before she continued. 

“I did, too. We discussed it about five years ago. I think we both knew things were going downhill and thought a baby would be able to save it. We tried for a while.” Blair shifted her eyes from Serena’s to the street outside. “Fertility treatments, schedules, everything.” She spoke so low that Serena could barely make out what she said. “But I just couldn't get pregnant. We stopped trying about a year and a half ago. Now I can’t even remember the last time we had sex.” 

Serena did not know quite what to say. She wished she could comfort Blair, but they’re lives were more different now than ever. “Did you finally tell him you wanted a divorce?”

“No.” Blair fixed her posture before she continued. “I wasn’t going to be the one to initiate it. A few days ago…” Serena leaned in as Blair spoke. “He told me he’d been sleeping with my royal minder, Estee. And for quite some time, might I add.”

“What a _bastard_.” Blair let out a slight laugh. 

“I had a feeling something was going on for a while now. The only reason we’re divorced is because she’s pregnant, otherwise I would have stayed with him and turned a blind eye. Hell, maybe I would have eventually picked up a royal minder of my own.”

 _“What? You’re already divorced?”_ The shock in Serena’s voice was more than apparent. 

“The divorce is finalized, S. They backdated the petition for divorce and expedited the process. As far as the public is concerned, we have been separated for a year, he filed for divorce ten months ago, and it was finalized four months ago even though we only signed the papers last night. The Grimaldis will release some bullshit statement explaining the many public appearances we made within the last year. Him and Estee will most likely be married before the year ends and they’ll live happily ever after with their heir.” 

“Blair, _excuse me_? Forgive me, but why aren’t you more upset? This all seems very fast.”

“If I never set foot in Monaco again, I will die a happy woman. Most of my stuff has already been sent over. I don’t think you realize how good it feels to be back in Manhattan. However, I do still need to call Eleanor before she reads it on the Internet tomorrow…”

“ _You haven’t even told your mother?”_ Blair laughed at Serena’s awe. 

“I signed the papers and hopped on the first plane to New York. I almost went straight to Los Angeles to see you, but luckily I saw you were papped at Teterboro.”

“This is a lot. Let’s focus on one thing at a time. You’re moving back to the Upper East Side?” A genuine smile spread across Blair’s face as she nodded her head. Serena lunged forward and gave Blair another tight squeeze. 

“You have to promise to never leave New York again,” she mumbled into Blair’s ear. 

“I missed you so much, S.”

“I missed you, too, B.” They unlatched, but Serena kept her hands on Blair’s shoulders, a frown forming across her face. “I can’t believe I’m only here for a few days.”

“I can’t believe we’re here _together._ I’m just finally glad to be _home_ . And don’t you worry, we’ll see each other plenty. I promise. Right now, I am focused on readjusting to life on the Upper East Side, but I’m going to have to figure out my next move sooner or later.” Serena looked at her watch and was shocked at the time. _3:47 pm._

“Oh, fuck, we’re late for dinner. Come on, let’s go up!” They each grabbed a pie and made their way to the elevator. Serena finally got a good look at the ex-princess and was in awe. “B, you look _amazing_. I think you look better than you did at twenty-one years old.” They shared a laugh. It’s been a while since Blair was in a good mood. It felt amazing to finally laugh, even if it was just for a fleeting moment. 

“You know, contrary to what people may think, I’ve heard divorce can be great for the complexion.”

“No wonder my mother has flawless skin.” Serena rolled her eyes as the inside joke rolled off her tongue. The elevator doors opened and they looked at each other before continuing. “Ready, B?” Blair let out a breath and fixed her posture.

“Ready.” They entered the apartment and rounded the corner, pies in hand. 

“Serena, where have you been!” Lily’s voice echoed across the apartment. 

“Sorry for the wait, everybody. The good news is that we’ve got pie!”

“We?” Eric inquired from the couch. Serena moved aside to reveal their surprise guest. 

“Looks like you’re going to have to set an extra place at the table,” Serena started. “Look who I found in the lobby!” Everyone turned their heads to the petite brunette standing behind the long-legged golden girl. 

“Is that-” Nate began. He was standing next to a girl with a long black hair. _That must be Karolina._ The rest of the guests must have arrived shortly after Serena embarked on her pie pilgrimage. 

“Blair?” A deep, raspy voice finished. The owner of the voice stepped out from behind one of the pillars and revealed himself. _Chuck Bass._


	4. It's Going to Take Some Time to Kick Some of Those Royal Habits

All but one person in the apartment shifted from where they were to greet Blair in the foyer. Rufus grabbed the pie from Blair so that her hands would be free for a hug with Lily. Once she was free, Dan swept in and squeezed her from the side. “Blair, how long are you in town? I have tickets to a showing this weekend, you should definitely come with me! You know, if it’s even okay for you to, I get it might be difficult for security reasons and everything. I haven’t had someone to see films with in, what, seven years?” Blair widened her eyes at Serena as everyone crowded around her. 

“Blair Waldorf, as I live and breathe!” Nate gave his ex-flame a kiss on the cheek, making her blush. “Karolina, come meet Blair!” Nate turned around and shouted across the penthouse. The girl with the dirty blonde hair stepped forward. 

“Hi,” Blair started as she reached her hand out, a warm and inviting smile spreading across her face.

Nate began to introduce the two of them. “Karolina, meet Blair, Princess of Monaco.” Blair just about cringed at the sound of her old title. “Princess, meet my fiancée, Karolina.”

Karolina returned Blair’s offer for a handshake. “It’s so nice to finally meet you! I’ve heard so much!” She was practically gushing. Blair knew she was excited to be meeting a real life princess and the thought of having to tell everyone the big news made her want to shrivel up and die. She was more than familiar with public speaking at this point, but she knew this would be a moment that will haunt her for the rest of her life. 

Lily grabbed Blair’s hand and dragged her over to the couch. “Blair, darling, are you staying for dinner? We would love to have you! Did Louis accompany you? I’m sure we could fit two more places at the table for you.”

Looking to Serena for help, Blair realized she just had to rip the bandage off. “No, actually, I came by myself.”

“Are Eleanor and Cyrus here, too? If they are we must invite them immediately.”

“No, they’re still in Paris.” Blair wished they could just read her mind rather than have her actually tell them with real words that she was now a divorced woman at the ripe age of twenty-eight. 

“Set another place at the table for Blair,” Lily barked at one of the maids. “What is new with your life, Blair?”

“If I remember correctly, the last time any of us really saw you was at your wedding,” Eric chimed in. 

Blair’s heart began to race. Everyone, Lily, Rufus, Serena, Eric, Jenny, Dan, Nate, and Karolina, was staring at her, eager to hear what she was going to say. In the moment before she spoke, she remembered Chuck was there for dinner. She looked up from the group of people surrounding her in the living room and found his eyes. He was leaning against the wall in the hallway, his gaze focused on the toe of his shoes as he kept his distance. 

Blair kept her eyes on Chuck. “I’m moving back to Manhattan.” He hesitated before he lifted his head to look at her, surprised to find she was looking right back at him. It was almost as if she was looking directly into his soul. “Louis and I are divorced.” 

For a moment, Blair went deaf. She knew the people surrounding her were speaking, but she could not hear a single thing they were saying. She and Chuck looked into each other’s eyes for what felt like light years. She was brought back to reality by Serena slightly shaking her shoulder. 

“Sorry, what?” Blair shook her head and focused her attention back to the conversation surrounding her divorce. 

Lily had the same look of confusion plastered across her face that Serena donned in the lobby when Blair told her the news. “You mean you’re getting a divorce.”

Blair sat up straight and corrected Lily. “No, actually. Everything is already finalized.” Her eyes darted from Lily’s back to Chuck’s except he was no longer looking at her. A tall, slender redhead had come out of the powder room and stood next to him. She lifted one of her hands to Chuck’s right arm and caressed him. 

“What’s going on?” the mystery woman whispered to Chuck. Blair couldn’t hear whatever they were saying, so she went back to Lily and began to explain what had happened recently and for the past seven years. 

Chuck tried to make himself seem as emotionless as possible. The woman with fiery red hair 

could tell that he was suddenly uneasy, but she decided not to mention it. “It looks like Serena brought her friend over for Thanksgiving dinner.” _Talk about downplaying it, Chuck._

“Wait, Serena’s here?” The woman unlatched herself from Chuck’s arm as she dashed to the couch to greet her friend.

“Wai-” It was no use. She was practically on top of Serena by the time he tried to stop her. 

“Serena!” Whatever Blair and the rest of them were talking about was suddenly interrupted as the woman wrapped her thin arms around Serena’s neck. 

Serena noticed there was now an awkward silence around the room. “Marceline! Oh, my God!” _Who the hell is Marceline and why is she acting like she’s Serena’s best friend in the world?_

Turns out, Marceline practically was Serena’s best friend in the world. A lot had happened since Blair moved to Monaco seven years ago and Serena was lonely. Sure, she’d visit Blair as often as possible, but even that proved to be difficult to arrange granted both of their busy schedules. In order to distract herself, Serena decided to cave in and embrace the “it girl” image that was imposed upon her. She hired a publicist and got to work. She attended galas, parties, auctions, charity fundraisers, and more. She was climbing the social ladder with ease, her appearances becoming highly sought after. She met Marceline at an after party for a New York Fashion Week show and they became fast friends. They began to attend events together, something that proved beneficial to Marceline’s budding career as a model. 

Before she met Serena, Marceline was just another girl strutting the runway. There was nothing extremely remarkable about her, besides her natural hair color, of course. After being seen with Serena van der Woodsen around Manhattan, she found herself booking more shows and landing entire campaigns. Serena gained a friend and Marceline gained a career, what could be better? Their friendship blossomed for three years. In that time, they had moved into an apartment together and were living lavishly. Marceline had become more than well acquainted with all of Serena’s friends and family, for she was filling the void that Blair Waldorf left when she jetted off to Monaco to marry a prince. 

In 2014, Serena decided she wanted to challenge herself and take on the social scene in Los Angeles. She had grown tired of New York City and yearned for a change. She begged her new best friend to follow her, but she had scheduling conflicts that made it impossible for her to pick up her life on the east coast. Besides, she would be able to visit Serena in Los Angeles when she was in on business. 

Serena and Marceline had seen plenty of each other within the past two years of Serena’s big move, going on vacations together and traveling by private jet, but they steadily began to see each other less. Marceline began dating someone in 2016 and they had been inseparable ever since. Of course, she and Serena still spoke all the time - email, texts, phone calls - but her new man was her priority. She fell head over heels in love with him in such a short amount of time, and it seemed he had fallen for her, too. Frankly, they all wondered why they weren’t engaged yet. 

Remembering that she was in the middle of a conversation with someone Marceline had yet to be introduced to, Serena brought herself back to reality and let go of her friend. “Marceline, meet Blair Waldorf.” 

Blair stood up and went to shake Marceline’s hand when a look of excitement spread across her face. “Blair Waldorf?!” She threw Blair for a curveball when she went in to hug her. Slightly uncomfortable, Blair returned the gesture and acted like hugging someone the first time you meet them is a normal occurrence. “I’ve heard so much about you!” 

Serena could tell that Blair did not quite know what to say next, so she spoke up to save her. “Yes, Marceline, you have, but I don’t think Blair has had the pleasure of learning about you!” 

“Oh, silly me.” Marceline slapped her hand on her forehead in embarrassment. “I’m Marceline

Chastain, Serena’s best friend.” A shiver was sent down Blair’s spine. _Now isn’t the time to get catty, Blair._ “I can’t believe I’m actually meeting _the_ Blair Waldorf! You’re all anyone ever talks about around here!”

Marceline’s chipper demeanor rubbed Blair the wrong way. She just wanted to spend a quiet holiday with people she hasn’t seen in years and she’s going through a tough enough time already. She decided not to act like a total bitch and treat her with respect, much like a princess would do. _It’s going to take some time to kick some of those royal habits._

At this point, it was well past four o’clock and dinner was going to get cold if they didn’t begin eating soon. Blair seemed to have answered everyone’s questions, so there was no need to continue that conversation. They all shuffled over to the dinner table, Chuck a bit hesitant. He considered going home right then and there, but he saw that he and Blair were placed far enough away from each other and decided he’d stay and spend time with everyone else. 

Serena pulled Marceline aside and quickly spoke to her before dinner commenced. “M, you remember that I told you Blair was the Princess of Monaco, right?”

Marceline’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, shit, I totally forgot you ever said that! That’s so fucking cool, you’re friends with a princess!”

“Yeah, well, she’s not a princess anymore, got it? She recently got a divorce and is moving back to Manhattan. Now, listen to me.” She grabbed Marceline by the shoulders and faced her. “Don’t mention anything about it, okay? Don’t ask questions. None. Zilch. I think she’s pretty sick of talking about it and it hasn’t even gotten out to the press yet.”

Marceline gulped and nodded her head. Serena let go of her and they made their way to the table. Serena knew Marceline was capable of manifesting embarrassing and awkward situations, so she thought that she would get ahead of the curve and make sure she doesn’t say anything she would later chide herself for. Plus, knowing Blair, she could already tell that Marceline wasn’t her cup of tea. _Just wait until Blair finds out who her boyfriend is!_  
  



	5. Happy Belated Birthday, by the Way

Chuck and Blair were seated on complete opposite ends of the table, however they were on opposing sides. Afraid to make eye contact with his old flame, Chuck stared out of the large windows in the living room. He began to space out and think about the conversation he was having with Nate just before Serena arrived with her surprise guest. 

_“We’re thinking of a June wedding,” Karolina said. A humongous engagement ring sat on her left ring finger. She took a sip from her glass of wine, the ring so large it looked like she was barely able to lift her hand. Nate grabbed his fiancée’s free hand and kissed the top of it, making her blush._

_“Do you guys think you’ll get married in the city?” Chuck was genuinely curious. He and his girlfriend had been together for quite some time now, for he was perfectly content in his relationship. Unless she was just a terrific actress, it was obvious she was head over heels in love with him. Hearing Nate and Karolina speak about their future wedding made him consider what his own will be like. Considering he had plans to purchase a certain piece of jewelry within the next week, his future wedding may not be very far off._

_Nate shrugged his shoulders as he answered his best friend’s question. “We don’t really know yet. You know, Karolina and her family are from Vancouver or Sweden, so it may be unfair to have everyone come out east.”_

_Karolina looked up at her fiancé, love pouring out of her green eyes. “I’m trying to get him to take the plunge and commit to a destination wedding.”_

_Nate rolled his eyes and chuckled. “All you have to do is get me drunk and I’ll agree to anything.” They pecked each other on the lips, Karolina having to stand on her tip-toes to reach Nate’s mouth. “This coming year is going to be busy with weddings, huh, Chuck?”_

_Chuck blushed as Nate nudged him with his elbow. There was a look of confusion on Karolina's face. “Wait, am I missing something? Are you and Marceline…” She motioned to her own engagement ring and leaned forward._

_“No,” Chuck started. “Not yet, at least.”_

_“Chuck’s going to Harry Winston this week to get it.”_

_Karolina raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth in excitement. “Really?! Oh, this is great!” She jumped and quickly wrapped her arms around Chuck’s neck and pecked him on the cheek._

_“Easy, Kar.” Chuck let out a laugh and lowered his voice. “She has to say yes first, remember?”_

_Nate and Karolina looked at each other and simultaneously rolled their eyes. “Dude, she’s crazy about you. You guys have been going strong for over two years now. I mean, consistency is key. I’m glad we’re both done with that on-again, off-again bullshit.”_

_Chuck knew exactly what Nate was referring to, but decided not to give him a reaction. “I guess we’re all grown up now.”_

_“Yeah, who would have thought we’d all separate and finally live our own lives?” Nate laughed, but Chuck felt stung. Serena on the Pacific coast, Nate and Karolina engaged, Dan leading a successful career as a screenwriter, and a certain someone living a life of royalty in a tiny European country._

_For a moment, Chuck forgot he was even in a committed relationship. Marceline was great, she and Chuck have no secrets. She knows who he is and still loves him, how could he ever find someone better than that? She was slender, sexy, and successful, and Chuck was just the same. They seemed like pieces of the same puzzle, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re two pieces that are going to fit._

_The elevator dinged and Serena entered, pie in hand. “Serena, where have you been!” Lily sounded as if she was about to chide her daughter._

_“Sorry for the wait, everybody. The good news is that we’ve got pie!”_

_“We?” Eric had a quizzical look on his face._

_“Looks like you’re going to have to set an extra place at the table. Look who I found in the lobby!”_

_“Is that-” Nate began._

_“Blair?”_

Chuck ceased reminiscing about his conversation with Nate and Karolina when Marceline sat next to him and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled as he turned his head to the right to look at her. He was expecting to see her face and finally be at ease, for her beauty would be able to silence everything else in the world, but when he turned his head, he was shocked that his eyes didn’t focus on Marceline. Rather than finding a beautiful ginger haired model with bright green eyes looking at him with all the love in the world, he met his gaze with a pair of familiar soft, brown eyes. When they realized their eyes had locked, they both yanked their heads the other way. 

Serena noticed Blair’s sudden head movements and looked over at Chuck. By now he had put his arm around Marceline’s shoulders, her hand resting on his right thigh. She shifted her attention back to Blair and noticed she was uncomfortable. If Blair didn’t know Chuck’s girlfriend was Marceline before, she definitely did now. 

“I didn’t know he was going to be here, B,” Serena mumbled to her friend. 

Blair shook her head and patted Serena’s knee. “It’s okay, he’s your family. _I’m_ the one who showed up uninvited, okay?” Serena smiled in response, but decided not to continue mentioning Chuck, at least not in front of everyone at Thanksgiving dinner. 

From the moment Blair signed the divorce papers to the moment she saw Chuck in Lily’s apartment, Blair had not thought about her ex-lover once; however, knowing that he was in the room with his girlfriend made her skin crawl. It bothered her to no end, and the fact that she was bothered by them made her feel even more bothered. 

For the rest of the evening, no one asked Blair about Louis or Monaco, but Chuck and Blair continued to make awkward, fleeting eye contact. They all read the room and realized that Blair did not want to speak of it. The wound was still fresh and everything would be in the news within the next few days, so no one wasted their breath asking Blair questions. They were all just glad that she was home. _Especially Marceline._

They all enjoyed the pumpkin pie that Serena so thoughtfully went out to grab, and guests began to filter out of the apartment or head to bed. Eric and Jenny decided to retire early and Dan, Nate, and Karolina all walked out together. Chuck and Marceline were not far behind them, for they took Lily and Rufus heading upstairs to be their queue. Serena and Blair were sitting on the couch in silence for a while as they watched the fire crackle in the fireplace. 

“Come with me back to the penthouse,” Blair abruptly said. She turned her head to look at Serena. “I don’t think I want to be alone tonight.” 

“Of course, B.” She hugged her friend tight. “Let me go get some of my things and we can head out, okay?” 

Blair slightly nodded her head as Serena got up off the couch. She looked around the living room and realized this was the first time she had been alone in seven years. There were always people in the palace, and when she wasn’t at the palace she had a security detail. Even flying back to the United States on the private jet she was accompanied by multiple royal advisors. She felt herself sink into the emptiness of the apartment and felt at ease, like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. 

That moment of harmony was fleeting, to say the least. 

She was snapped back to reality by the sound of shoes clicking against the floor as someone exited the elevator and entered the apartment. She rotated her head to see who it was. Needless to say, her tension returned. 

“I forgot my phone.” Chuck was stopped dead in his tracks, visibly uncomfortable. Blair didn’t say anything, so Chuck continued on and started looking for it. After searching for a few moments that felt like hours, he gave up and mumbled underneath his breath, “Fuck it, whatever, I’ll get it some other time.” 

Blair kept her gaze on him as he started to leave the apartment. He was trying his best not to look at her. He was tired of looking at her, she made his stomach turn. _Or maybe that sickness was, simply, butterflies?_

“Wait-” Blair said. She couldn’t believe she actually just told him to wait, but she caught sight of his phone sitting on a table next to the couch. He stopped dead in his tracks, his back still facing her. She quietly got up from her seat and picked his phone up. Looking at his phone, she thought about how she didn’t even have his phone number anymore. Perhaps he hadn’t changed it. Blair knew his digits would be ones that she’ll never forget for the rest of her life. 

She approached him from behind, unintentionally quiet as ever. He turned around and was almost scared to see how close she was to him. “Sorry,” she said, letting out a little laugh. She reached her arm out and offered him his phone. 

“Thank you.” He took it from her hand, but not without their fingers touching. Shivers went down both of their spines, yet they both thought that the other could not have cared less. There was a moment of silence between them as Chuck slipped his phone into his pocket. “How have you been?”

“Lately or the past seven years?” The response slipped so fast out of Blair’s tongue that she would later chide herself for it. “I’ve been as good as possible, I suppose.”

Chuck stood there for a moment and studied Blair’s face. She was paler than she usually was, but her skin was still luminous. Her cheeks seemed soft and supple, brushed with the most delicate shade of pink. Her lip gloss shined so bright in the lights of the apartment that he was almost impressed. He found himself thinking about how all he wanted to do was transfer the gloss from her lips to his. 

“Chuck?” 

“Sorry, what?”

“I asked you how you’ve been, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just didn’t hear you.” He was so caught up in the seductiveness of her lip gloss that he completely zoned out. “I’m...good.” 

“Good.”

“Yeah, good.” They awkwardly stood there. If they could reach each other’s minds, they would know how badly the other wanted to shrivel up and die. “She’s very pretty.”

“I like to think that’s a common theme in all of my girlfriends.” Chuck was immediately embarrassed that he actually just said that in front of Blair. _It shouldn’t matter, technically it was a compliment to her, too!_ “ I should go.”

Blair nodded and Chuck turned to leave. He was about to round the corner to the elevator and disappear before he stopped to say one final thing. “Happy belated birthday, by the way.” A grin grew on her face as he saw how happy that statement made her. 

Her birthday was exactly a week prior, but it was so underwhelming that she was surprised she even remembered it herself. Nothing from any of her friends, nothing from her mother, either. Although it was childish at the age of twenty-eight to be disappointed by one’s birthday, Chuck’s wishes made up for every single November 15 that made her feel less than special.

  
  



	6. Monaco, Not France

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was a short one! Crunched for time!

Chuck entered the lobby of the apartment building to find Marceline waiting for him. “Ready?”

The leggy redhead jumped up from her seat and kissed her boyfriend on the cheek. “Arthur’s waiting out front.” She grabbed his hand and led him out to the street. All Chuck could think about was how her hand felt like ice, for it nearly gave him goosebumps. He disregarded her chilly fingers as he opened the limo door for her. Before they knew it, they were left to themselves in the penthouse at The Empire.

“Was it nice seeing all of your family again?” Marceline and Chuck were sitting on the couch in silence before she spoke. She leaned into him and began to stroke his hair. 

Chuck let in a sharp breath. “Yeah, I guess so.” Marceline gave him a confused look. For weeks leading up to dinner, all he seemed to talk about was how excited he was to see his friends and family in one room for an entire evening. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s nice seeing everyone, but I think _only_ seeing them on holidays isn’t necessarily a bad thing.” 

“I don’t understand. Where is this all coming from?” 

He looked into her green eyes to look for an answer because he didn’t have one himself. “Let’s go somewhere far away for Christmas, just the two of us.”

Marceline laughed in response. “Chuck, you know I can’t do that. I’m practically booked solid.” She lifted her body off of him and decided to lean against the couch. She lifted and extended her legs across his lap. 

“Yeah, I know,” he trailed off. They sat there as he rested his arms on her legs and fiddled with his fingers. 

Marceline didn’t want to sit in the silence much longer, so she resorted to making small talk. “It was lovely getting to finally meet Blair tonight.” Chuck tensed at the sound of her name, but Marceline didn’t seem to notice. “I haven’t heard much about her, Serena hadn’t really mentioned her before other than the fact that she grew up with you guys and married that prince in France.”

“Monaco.”

“What?”

“Monaco. He is the Prince of Monaco, not France.”

“Oh.” Marceline could tell that Chuck was a bit annoyed, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on the reason why he was so annoyed. “Did you know Blair? I mean, I’m assuming you did if she went to Constance with Serena.”

Chuck lifted his girlfriend’s legs off of his lap and forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Well, she was Serena’s best friend, of course I knew her. And she dated Nate for a while.”

This was obviously new news to Marceline. “She dated Nate? How come no one has ever mentioned this to me?”

“I guess it just wasn’t really important, I don’t know.” He stood up and started walking to the kitchen to get something to drink and escape a conversation with his girlfriend about Blair Waldorf. To his dismay, she followed him. “It’s not like Serena didn’t date Nate, too.”

“Yeah, but Blair’s a _princess.”_ The way she emphasized that word bothered Chuck more than ever thought it would. 

“Princess or not, she’s just a normal girl. It’s really not a big deal.”

“Did you get to go to the wedding? Ugh, I would be _ecstatic_ at the opportunity to go to an actual royal wedding.”

Chuck shook his head. “Uh, no. I wasn’t exactly invited.”

Marceline crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Why are you so standoffish?” Chuck didn’t answer, so she leaned forward and spoke again. “Did you date her or something?” 

Chuck scoffed in response and walked back into the living room to sit on the couch. 

“Because if you did, you know I won’t care. It’s not a big deal. I wouldn’t exactly be surprised if you did, considering you’ve literally _never_ spoken about her before toni-”

Chuck began to cut her off, his voice becoming more stern. “No, we never dated. I barely have a relationship with her, we just happened to grow up with the same people. Besides, she got married seven years ago and didn’t come back to New York until this morning. I didn't quite intend on becoming best buds with her then, and I don’t really plan on it now.” Marceline didn’t quite know what to say in response, for Chuck had never spoken to her like this before. “And I know you’re itching at the opportunity to cozy up to her just because she _used to be_ a princess, but I really suggest that you just keep your distance and let her live her life.”

Marceline lifted her arms in confusion. "Is there something wrong? Did I say something wrong?" 

He let out of a deep breath and thought about what he was going to say next. He had already lied to her about knowing Blair, he might as well continue to stretch the truth. "No, it's not you, I'm sorry. I just don't really like Blair, that's all." He looked at Marceline, who had a disappointed look on her face. "She's been gone for the better part of a decade and my life is finally _good._ " He smiled at her and cupped her cheek in ones of his hands. "Just do me a favor, please?"

"Anything, Chuck." Marceline was eager to hear what he was going to ask her to do. 

"Don't pursue Blair. Don't try to be her friend. You're just going to get hurt in the end, trust me." Marceline nodded her head in agreement. "It shouldn't be too difficult. It's not like the two of you run in the same circles, either."

Chuck said goodnight and abruptly went to bed. Marceline thought he had fallen fast asleep by the time she joined him, but he was wide awake with thoughts of Blair Waldorf running around his head _all night._

  
  



	7. I Hope She at Least Has Good Taste

Serena and Blair had both fallen asleep in the same bed, only to be awoken by Blair’s phone ringing on the nightstand. She reached for it and answered the call before even opening her eyes to check and see who was calling. 

“Blair Waldorf!” She hadn’t even greeted whoever was calling before they started talking. Blair shot up and was wide awake after she realized it was her mother. “Have you gone absolutely mad? Did you really think it was wise to tell me about your _divorce_ via voicemail? Do I not warrant a live phone call?”

“Mothe-”

“I had to wake up this morning to a voicemail from my _only child_ telling me that she has gotten a quickie divorce and jetted off back to the United States? You _know_ Cyrus and I did not go anywhere for the holidays, you should have come to _Paris_ and stay with us until you _figured things out!_ ”

Although Blair had not put her mother on speaker, Eleanor was loud enough to wake Serena up from her deep slumber. She adjusted in the bed to sit in front of Blair to try and hear the entire conversation. She mouthed at Blair to put the speaker on, to which she quickly obliged. 

“I honestly do not understand why you would _ever_ sign divorce papers without telling your own parents about it first! I mean, what did you do? Did you sign the papers and walk out of the palace immediately after? What about your things? Where are you staying?”

“Mother!” Blair had to raise her voice in order for her mother to hear her and stop talking. “Let me talk, please!”

Eleanor let out an annoyed sigh. “Fine, explain yourself.”

At that moment, Blair embarked on the long story of her divorce. She and her mother continued to speak back and forth for what seemed like ages, so Serena decided to head out and grab breakfast for the two of them. Since Dorota was no longer with the Waldorfs and no one had visited the penthouse in a few months, there was no one around to cook or clean for them. She got back nearly an hour later, to which Blair was just about to finish her phone call with her mother. She walked downstairs in her robe and sat with Serena in the dining room. 

“Well, that phone call sounded like it wasn’t a pleasant one.” Serena poured each of them a cup of tea. Blair was happy to see the china cups and plates that were once so familiar to her. 

“I don’t think I’ve _ever_ had a pleasant conversation with Eleanor Waldorf.” They both laughed as they began to pick at the food Serena had picked up. “She’s getting on the first flight out of Paris.” 

Serena could tell that this wasn’t exactly happy news. “B, it’s okay, she’ll get over it.” She reached out and rubbed Blair’s arm. “It’s not like she hasn’t been divorced before.”

“It’s like she forgot divorce was a rite of passage on the Upper East Side.” Serena nodded her head in agreement as she bit into a croissant. “But then again, I think she’s a bit hurt.”

“That you didn’t tell her?”

“Yeah,” Blair replied. “I think she’s upset I didn’t run to her first.”

Serena didn’t want to annoy Blair by agreeing with Eleanor, so she thought before she spoke. “Do you really blame her? She’s your mother.”

The fine china clinked as Blair put her teacup back on the plate. “I guess I don’t.” They ate in silence until all of their breakfast was practically gone. “I feel weird.”

“Weird?” Serena furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. Blair noticed that her forehead wrinkled. _No botox? That’s a bit surprising._ “Are you going to be sick?”

Blair shook her head as she swallowed another sip of tea. “I feel weird… being back here.” 

“So do I,” Serena admitted. 

“I mean, we’ve both been gone for so long. At least you’ve visited over the years.”

“ _Barely.”_ Blair leaned forward in interest. She was under the impression that Serena frequently visited and kept in close touch with everyone that stayed in the city. “I don’t know, I’ve been practically booked solid with work ever since I moved out to Los Angeles. To be honest, I got lucky this week. Usually I try to book over holidays so that I have an excuse not to come back.”

“But you _always_ used to talk about how important family was to you.”

Serena got up from her seat and began to clean up their breakfast. “I guess I started to focus on myself and realized I don’t constantly need someone to lean on. You left and I made a vow to start making decisions for me, myself, and I.”

“I’m proud of you, Serena.” Blair stood up and gave her friend a tight squeeze. “I don’t want you to go back to Los Angeles.”

Serena rubbed Blair’s shoulders as she squeezed her back. “I know.” She pulled away from Blair and held her by the elbows. “But you absolutely _need_ to come and visit me. Have you ever even been to California?” 

Blair thought for a moment. “No, I guess I haven’t.” 

“I fly back out Sunday afternoon. You should come with me! I’m taking the private jet and it could be so fun, B.” 

Blair laughed as she turned to the table and started to collect the fine china. “I think Eleanor would be _pretty upset_ if she got to the apartment and there was a note on the table in the foyer saying I jetted off to the west coast with you.” 

“I don’t even think she would have time to yell at you because her head would explode with anger,” Serena mumbled. 

The two girls laughed and decided to go out shopping together. No one else knew that Blair was no longer in Monaco, so they wouldn’t have to worry about pictures being taken of them. 

Right before they left, Serena had a suggestion. “Hey, why don’t I call Karolina and invite her?” 

Blair racked her brain for who she was talking about, but she couldn’t quite put a face to the name. “Karolina? Who the hell are you talking about?”

Serena rolled her eyes and shook Blair by the shoulders, her brunette curls bouncing up and down. “ _Nate’s_ Karolina. His fiancée.”

“Oh!” Blair felt like an idiot for not remembering a girl she met barely twelve hours prior. “Do you even know her that well? I didn’t quite take the two of you to be the bestest of friends last night.” 

“We’re not, actually. In fact, yesterday was the first time I’ve ever met her, but I was speaking with Nate and he said that he thinks I’d _really_ get along with her.” Serena waited for Blair to say something, but she did not. “Come on, Blair. Let me just call her and ask her if she wants to come, it’s seriously not a big deal, is it?”

“No, I guess it’s not.” Serena smiled and clapped her hands before digging through her purse for her phone. She eventually found it and dialed Karolina's number. _Good thing she added her to her contacts last night at dinner!_

“Hey, Karolina, it’s Serena van der Woodsen.” Blair walked away to go get her coat, so she didn’t hear the rest of the conversation until Serena relayed it to her. 

“She said she’ll meet us at Bergdorf's!” Serena made her way to the elevator but stopped when she noticed Blair wasn’t trailing her. “Come on, Blair!” 

Blair huffed and slipped her coat on before joining Serena in the elevator. “I hope she at least has good taste.”

Serena chuckled as she playfully punched Blair’s arm and they made their way down to the lobby. 

  
  



	8. All He Could Think About Was Blair Waldorf

Prior to Thanksgiving, Chuck was certain he was going to propose to Marceline and hopefully spend the rest of his life with her, but with the return of Blair Waldorf due to her subsequent divorce, he began to second guess his intentions. 

“Hey, man!” Nate walked into the kitchen of the penthouse to find Chuck sipping from a mug and reading a newspaper. 

“Nathaniel, long time no see.” 

“Oh, yeah, it’s been, what? Fifteen, sixteen hours?” He pulled a chair out and sat with Chuck at the table. “Where’s Marceline?” 

Chuck didn’t look up from the paper as he said, “She had a shoot this afternoon. She won’t be back until late this evening.” Nate nodded his head as he tapped his fingers against the table. Chuck could tell he had something to say but was hesitant to speak. “What’s on your mind, Nathaniel?”

“Well, if Marceline is going to be gone for the entire day…”

“Yes?”

Nate giddily shuffled around in his seat. “Why don’t you and I go to Harry Winston and look at engagement rings?”

Chuck flipped the newspaper and continued reading an article. “Look, I’m flattered, but aren’t you already engaged?”

Nate let out a sarcastic laugh. “Very funny, Chuck.” He got up out of his seat and walked behind Chuck, placing his hand on his shoulders. “You know what I’m talking about, dude. Come on! It’ll be nice!”

“We don’t need to go to Harry Winston because I went this morning and already picked one out,” Chuck replied as he set the newspaper down and took a sip from his mug. Nate immediately got excited and asked to see it. “Hold on to your panties, Nate. It won’t be ready for a few days.”

But there’s a catch: Chuck was absolutely telling a lie. 

He did indeed go to Harry Winston that Friday morning, but he never picked out an engagement ring.

He went and examined some of their finest rings, but became sick to the stomach at the thought of purchasing one of them for Marceline. They were all beautiful, extraordinary, and unique in their own ways, so much so that any normal person would be disgusted with such an obscene display of wealth, but he couldn’t imagine giving any of them to his current girlfriend, hopeful fiancée, and eventual wife. 

He was so sure that he wanted to marry Marceline, but Blair’s arrival threw a wrench in his plans. It’s not like she divorced Louis and came back to Manhattan for him, it was expected that she would return to the city if the marriage didn’t work out. Chuck certainly didn’t own New York City and they couldn’t expect either of them to leave behind their beloved shared hometown, but the fact that he was _so sure_ he no longer had feelings for her made him all the more confused. 

For the past twenty-four hours, all he could think about was her shiny, curly brown hair adorned with a trademark headband. All he could think about was the nape of her neck and how it smelled like Chanel No. 5. All he could think about was her spending the night in her penthouse alone. All he could think about was her ivory white teeth hiding behind a pair of glossy, supple lips. All he could think about was how happy she was when she watched an Audrey Hepburn film. All he could think about was _Blair Waldorf._

Marceline was beautiful, smart, funny, successful, and frankly, seemingly perfect, but she never grasped his attention like Blair Waldorf did. 

When he and Blair let each other go that fateful night seven years prior, he expected to never see her again. She was no longer on the tabloids’ radar, for she was too far away in Monaco for them to care. Her parents were all living in Paris, so it was not like he was going to be reminded of her existence by passing them in the street. With Serena living in California, it was not like he was going to see them shopping together on Madison. 

As far as he was concerned, Blair Waldorf didn’t exist. 

For the past seven years, he had been living his life in peace. He went back to his old ways for a while, getting drunk and spending his nights with prostitutes like he did not have a care in the world, but then he decided to take care of himself. He became more charitable, quit drinking, cut ties with his dealer, and even started pursuing monogamous relationships. His life was swell for five years until he met Marceline. He could not think his life could get better, but she proved him wrong. The last two years they had spent together felt like a dream come true. Although Blair had not really crossed his mind in seven years, he had previously been convinced he would never be able to love someone the way he loved her. His relationship with Marceline made him second guess this idea, or so he thought. 

He needed to distract himself from her. 

Not wanting to admit that he was about to propose to a girl he didn’t _actually_ love just because his ex-girlfriend moved back to town, Chuck decided to lie to Nate about buying an engagement ring for her. _Maybe if he lied about it, he would find the courage to go out and actually get down on one knee._

There was no reason for him not to propose to her. In fact, he thought he should propose to her as soon as possible just so he could put his mind at ease, commit to Marceline, and be done with Blair forever. 

“Does she know about you and Blair?” Nate asked. Chuck had completely forgotten his friend was even still there. 

“What about me and Blair?” He was genuinely intrigued as to why Nate was even concerned about the two of them. 

“I know you guys have been together for over two years, but I know for a fact you’ve never mentioned your past with Blair to her.” 

“And how do you know that?”

Nate let out a sigh as he stood up to get a glass of water. “She called Karolina last night and asked her if I had ever said anything about Blair.”

Chuck rolled his eyes. “My past with Blair is of no one’s concern, especially Marcie’s.”

“If you say so,” Nate scoffed. He looked over at Chuck to find him glaring at him. If looks could kill, Nate Archibald would be a dead man. “Look, I know you lied to her about Blair.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Chuck tossed the newspaper in the trash and put his mug in the sink. 

“Karolina told _me_ that Marceline said that _you_ were getting really upset when she started asking you questions about Blair. She also said that you claimed you don’t know her very well, that you barely have any relationship with her beyond acquaintances, and that it seemed like you didn’t like her at all.”

Chuck was going to leave the kitchen, but he stopped and tried to think of what to say. All he could think about was how he was going to get caught in his lies and have to face a fight with Marceline. 

Nate could tell that he was ashamed of himself for saying those things about Blair and lying to Marceline. “Don’t worry, man. I covered for you.”

“Covered for me?” Chuck showed Nate the look of confusion that was spread across his face. 

“I haven’t exactly told Karolina a lot about Blair, either. I basically just confirmed whatever Marceline alleged that you said. Neither of them know the history between the two of you.” 

Chuck let out a sigh of relief. “I don’t even know what I was thinking when I started lying to her.” He dropped his face into his hands in frustration. 

One of the chairs screeched against the floor as Nate stood up and walked toward his friend. “Don’t beat yourself up over this, Chuck. I know it’s been a long time, but I’m proud of all of the progress you’ve made. I just hope you won’t let Blair’s return allow you to crawl back to your old ways.”

“Trust me, I have no intentions of rebuilding any sort of relationship with Blair.” Chuck regretted saying that as soon as he finished his sentence. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure what he wanted, but he wasn’t going to let Nate know that. “It’s not like she came back to be with me.”

“Right. She probably didn’t even know you were going to be at Lily’s for dinner last night.” They both leaned against one of the counters in the kitchen for a moment. “Do you think she realized how serious you and Marceline are?”

Chuck thought for a moment, but he could not come to a solid conclusion. “I don’t know, but I don’t think there is anything to worry about. We’re not kids anymore, it’s not like she’s going to go out of her way to destroy my relationships like she used to.” He turned to Nate and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We let each other go over seven years ago, Nathaniel. I don’t have feelings for her anymore.”

The dark, bushy eyebrows on Nate’s face raised in agreement as he nodded his head and pursed his lips, but even he had his doubts about that statement. Knowing Chuck for nearly all of their lives, he was more than aware of how much Blair meant to him all those years ago. Even though he has been with Marceline for over two years at this point, he still thought a part of his friend’s heart would always belong to Blair Waldorf. “By this time next year, you and I are going to be married men, anyway, right, Chuck?”

“Yeah, right,” Chuck mumbled. Nate didn’t seem to notice he was less than enthusiastic. 

“Let’s just hope Karolina doesn’t become best buds with Serena or Blair anytime soon, or else we’ll both be sorry.” 

  
  
  



	9. How Very Jackie O of Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have decided to change a few things about Nate's fiancée. Instead of her name being Caroline, I have changed it to Karolina. She also now has long and dark hair instead of a dirty blonde bob, and her family is from Vancouver/Sweden and not Seattle. Sorry for switching it up! I would rather have it this way!

Serena and Blair arrived at Bergdorf’s just as Karolina was approaching them from the other direction, a warm and inviting smile stretched across her face. “Serena, hi!” A mop of perfectly messy blonde waves and braids of long, thick, dark brown hair got closer as the two girls hugged. “And you brought Blair!”

Blair flashed Karolina a half-hearted smile as she let go of Serena and approached her with open arms. She gave her a slight pat on the back as she waited for the embrace to be over. 

Noticing that Blair was not being as friendly as she wished she would be, Serena gave her a slightly aggressive nudge with her elbow. “Come on, let’s go!”

The three girls shuffled into the store and started to browse. After Blair realized that Karolina appeared to be a decent shopper, she loosened up and began to make light conversation. “So, Karolina, how long have you and Nate been together?”

“Over two years. He actually proposed on our anniversary a few months ago.”

Serena shook her head in disbelief. “You guys have been together for more than two years and we didn’t meet until yesterday? I really did disappear, didn’t I?” 

Blair decided to switch gears on the conversation. “If you don’t mind my asking, why did the two of you decide to spend Thanksgiving with Serena’s family? I know Nate isn’t the biggest fan of the van der Bilt’s, but I would have at least thought he would prefer to be with his mother than Lily and Rufus.”

“Blair,” Serena started, thinking that Blair was trying to dig up dirt on Karolina and Nate’s relationship so that she could either humiliate her or sabotage her later. 

“Oh, it’s fine,” Karolina replied. She started flicking through a rack of dresses in search of her size. “His mother started seeing some Greek millionaire and Nate wasn’t interested in dealing with them.”

“How very Jackie O of her.” The two other girls chuckled at Blair’s witty response. “And what about your family?”

“My parents immigrated from Sweden, but I grew up in Canada, so we don’t celebrate American Thanksgiving.” 

Serena put her hand on her forehead. “That makes a lot of sense! I could definitely tell you weren’t American. You’re much too nice.”

Karolina laughed at the compliment and Blair rolled her eyes as she said, “Being nice is overrated.”

A look of bewilderment appeared on Karolina’s face as she looked at Serena. “Don’t listen to Blair, Karolina. She’s been nice for seven straight years, we’ll let slide for now.”

Blair could tell that Karolina had forgotten that she was a princess until that very moment. She began to dread whatever questions she was going to ask her, for she really did not want to get into the ups and downs of royalty in the middle of Bergdorf Goodman’s. 

“And this is the first time you’ve been back home in seven years, Blair?” Karolina didn’t even look up from the clothes she was admiring as she asked the question. 

“Nope.” Blair was going to let her response begin and end with that one word, but then something dawned on her. “This is actually the first time I’ve been able to go shopping since I left Manhattan.” 

Serena clicked across the floor and squeezed Blair from the side. “Then we’ll literally have to shop until we drop then, won’t we?” 

Blair took a look around and realized she had been adhering to such a strict dress code for the better part of a decade that she never would have been able to wear any of the clothes, shoes, or handbags in front of her if she and Louis had not gotten divorced. “I think my credit cards are practically begging to be maxed out,” she laughed. 

Although she had been gone from the United States for quite some time, a good number of the employees at the store remembered Blair, which meant they also knew about her status as a member of the Monagesque royal family; however, Serena had pulled someone aside when they arrived and offered them a monetary reward for their discretion. Not wanting to disrespect two of the most famous socialites in New York City, the employees successfully made sure that word of their shopping trip at Bergdorf’s would not get out. 

After an extremely successful outing with Serena and Nate’s finacée, Blair decided to extend an invitation to the two of them to eat back at her apartment. They delightfully accepted, so they made their way back to the penthouse on Fifth Avenue and ordered dinner once they agreed on a restaurant. They sat in the living room as they waited for their food to arrive, Blair checking her phone every few minutes just to make sure news of her divorce or shopping trip hadn’t been broken. 

“When do you think they’re going to announce the divorce?” Karolina inquired. She could tell that something was bothering Blair and correctly assumed it had to do with her recently failed marriage. 

Blair let out a sigh as she bounced her leg up and down. “I was told they would announce it before our seventh wedding anniversary, which is supposed to be on the twenty-sixth, but I’m so paranoid I was spotted when we were out shopping. If someone recognized me shopping without my engagement ring, then the media would _definitely_ know something was going on. I just want everything to be done with.”

“At least all of your friends and family know,” Serena chimed in. Blair and Karolina both nodded in agreement. “Trust me, Blair, this will all blow over by the new year.”

“2019 cannot come soon enough,” Blair huffed. She propped her elbow up on the arm of the chair she was sitting in and rested her chin on it. “It does feel good to be home, though.”

Not wanting to continue talking about _home,_ Serena directed her attention to Karolina. “So, Karolina, I know we didn’t have a chance to talk a lot last night, but my mom told me you’re thinking of going to Stanford?”

Karolina perked up at the mention of her prospective law school. “Yeah! I graduate from Columbia next spring, but I still haven’t made a decision on where I want to go after.”

“Have you been accepted anywhere else?” Blair questioned. Serena could tell that Blair hadn’t had a conversation like this in years and was excited to be talking about academia.

Karolina blushed a bit before she answered. “Yeah. Right now, I have Yale, Harvard, UPenn, the University of Chicago, Cornell, Georgetown, and, of course, Stanford to choose from.”

Serena immediately looked to Blair when Karolina mentioned Yale. “ _Yale?_ I don’t understand what the question is here, Karolina, you can’t _not_ go to _Yale_.” 

“Blair is obsessed with Yale, Karolina. If you want an opinion on where to go, don’t ask her, she’s quite biased,” Serena added with a laugh. 

“Did you go to Yale?” 

Blair’s shoulders dropped when Karolina asked her that question, a frown forming on her otherwise beautiful, glowing face. “No, I went to NYU my freshman year and transferred to Columbia for my sophomore year before moving to Monaco.”

“Yale missed out.” Serena tried to cheer Blair up, but she could tell that she was still stung by her rejection from Yale ten years prior. 

Blair attempted to lighten the mood with a joke. "I think the worst part is not being able to watch Gilmore Girls without being triggered."

“I didn’t know you went to Columbia for your undergrad!” Karolina was excited that she had something in common with a princess. Well, ex-princess.

“Yeah,” Blair’s voice trailed off. “I actually missed the deadline to apply to transfer, but I’m grateful everything worked out in the end. NYU was actual hell, believe me.”

“How did everything work out if you missed the deadline? I thought they were pretty strict about applying on time.” 

Blair was hoping Karolina wouldn’t ask _how_ she got to attend Columbia after all, but Serena swooped in and tried saving the conversation. “Blair’s boyfriend at the time actually applied for her as a joke. He said she had too much pride to admit that NYU was a mistake.” There was a look of relief in Blair’s eyes. “They had broken up by the time she found out she was accepted, but she was always grateful he did that for her, weren’t you, B?”

“Yes, I was. It was a very considerate thing he did for me.” Blair shifted her eyes from the girls in front of her to her hands resting on her lap. 

Karolina crossed one leg over the other and leaned on one of the couch arms. “It sounds like he must have really known you.”

“Yeah, he did, but that relationship is long in the past.”

Serena and Blair’s newest friend was about to ask if she happened to know who this specific ex-boyfriend was when they were interrupted by the arrival of their dinner. Karolina offered to go greet the delivery person and pay. 

“Thanks for chiming in there,” Blair whispered when Karolina was out of earshot. Serena smiled in response to Blair’s gratitude. “I really didn’t feel like talking about you-know-who tonight.”

The three girls gathered in the dining room and ate their dinner together, chatting until they realized how late it was. 

“Oh, shit, it’s practically tomorrow morning,” Karolina said as she checked the time on her phone. “I should really get back to the Upper West Side.”

“Oh, please, stay in one of the guest bedrooms for tonight.” Blair was surprised she had so quickly offered the night at her penthouse to a girl she just met, but she ended up enjoying her day with Serena and Karolina so much that she might consider the latter a new friend. After all, she would need someone to go shopping with when Serena went back to California.

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, Blair, are you sure?” Serena emphasized Karolina’s question. 

“I _insist_ . Come, you can look through my closet for some pajamas.” Blair and Karolina walked up the stairs, Serena trailing closely behind. _Maybe Blair Waldorf can be civil after all!_

  
  



	10. Might This Have Anything to Do With Chuck Bass?

Blair and Serena both fell asleep in Blair’s bed again, but this time they were awoken by Eleanor Wadlorf-Rose in the flesh. 

_“Blair Cornelia Waldorf!”_ Eleanor was towering over the bed with her hands on her hips and a killer look on her face.

“Mother!” Blair said as she shot up in the bed, slipping her sleep mask up off her face. 

“Hi, Eleanor,” Serena groaned. She couldn’t find the courage to wake up and face the day. 

Eleanor was momentarily delighted to see her daughter’s best friend. “Serena, dear, how lovely it is to see you.” She then turned her attention back to Blair. “You. Get dressed. Meet me downstairs.” Blair nodded her head and Eleanor turned around to exit the bedroom. 

“I’m really glad they didn’t get rid of your bed when you left,” Serena mumbled through the pillow her head was resting on. “This truly is the most comfortable one I have ever been on.” 

Blair flipped the covers off of her body and hopped out of the bed. “Feel free to stay as long as you would like, Serena.” She entered the bathroom and began to run the water. “But just know it is going to be World War Waldorf downstairs. You might not want to eat here.” 

Serena briefly lifted her head before promptly falling back asleep. “Duly noted.”

Tip-toeing around the room so as not to wake the blonde bombshell passed out in her bed, Blair physically and mentally got ready for her mother to chide her downstairs. She looked at her phone to make sure news of the divorce had not yet broken and realized what time it was. _12:37 pm._

“Mother, I would just like to apologize for not greeting you at the airport. I must have forgotten to set an alarm,” Blair pleaded as she descended the spiral staircase and made eye contact with Eleanor and Cyrus sitting in the living room. “Cyrus!”

“Blair, come here,” he said as he stood up and embraced his step-daughter. She pulled away a few moments later, but not before he squeezed her back in. “Not enough!” They both returned their attention to Eleanor only to find her scowling at the both of them. 

“Please, Cyrus, let us not so quickly forgive her for all that she has done over the past few days.” Cyrus hung his head as all three of them made their way to the dining room. Someone had placed the teapot and teacups on the table. “What the fuck happened, Blair?”

Cyrus winced at his wife’s use of vulgar language. “Eleanor, please, there is no need for such strong words.” 

Blair was nodding in agreement with Cyrus’ statement when she realized her mother was staring at her. “Sorry.”

“I _cannot_ believe you got a divorce without telling your own mother and decided to tell her over _voicemail._ ” 

“Mother, you don’t understand, it w-”

“Don’t understand _what? Divorce?”_

“That’s not what I mea-”

“Then what _do_ you mean, Blair? You were married to the man for nearly _seven years_ and then one day you decide you don’t want to be married to him anymore?”

“It wasn’t one day.”

“What? Two days? Maybe three?”

“Eleanor, dear, I think you’re being quite harsh,” Cyrus chimed in, but neither Blair nor her mother seemed to hear him speak. 

“Just let me explain!”

“I hate to ask this, but might this have anything to do with _Chuck Bass?_ ”

Blair was entirely thrown off by the mention of her ex-boyfriend. She looked to Cyrus for help, but it seems as if he also thought Chuck was the reason Blair was so eager to get a divorce. “What? No, absolutely not. I haven’t spoken to Chuck for seven years. God, Mother, why would you ever think that? _I don’t even have his phone number._ ”

“You don’t even have to speak to him, Blair. You two have some weird force field effect on each other, physicists should study it,” her mother mumbled as her face collapsed in her hands. 

“I saw Chuck for the first time in forever on Thursday and we barely said three sentences to each other. And I felt nothing, might I add!” 

Blair might have had her mother and Cyrus fooled that she didn’t have any feelings for Chuck when she spoke to him after Thanksgiving, but only she knew the truth. She didn’t know if it was because she was just jealous of his gorgeous model girlfriend or if it was because she held romantic feelings for him, but she did indeed _feel emotions_ when she saw and spoke to him at Lily’s apartment. In fact, she felt emotions whenever she simply heard his name. Just now, she felt her shoulders tense up when her mother wondered if he was the reason for her return to New York City. 

It took a few more minutes, but Blair finally calmed Eleanor down and explained everything that happened. By the time their discussion was over, the fashion designer was fatigued from the stressful emotional rollercoaster they all just rode on. 

“I’m sorry for making you feel as if I was excluding you, Mother. It truly wasn’t my intention to make you feel like you’re not important enough in my life to warrant at least a phone call. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me,” Blair pleaded. 

Eleanor let out a sigh as she extended her arm and tucked a brown curl behind Blair’s left ear. “It’s okay, dear. It’s obviously been quite an emotional few days for you.”

“Just promise us that the next time you get a divorce, you tell us about it first, okay?” Eleanor and Blair laughed at Cyrus’ comment as they all crowded together in a hug. 

“I think I need to go lie down,” Eleanor announced as they all stepped away from their hug. Cyrus agreed and the two of them headed up the stairs when they passed Karolina walking down the stairs with Serena trailing not too far behind. “And who are you?”

“Eleanor, this is Karolina Nyquist, Nate Archibald’s fiancée.” 

“Nate Archibald is engaged? No one ever tells us anything anymore!” 

Serena and Karolina continued down the stairs and found Blair sipping from one of her beloved china teacups in the dining room. 

“Blair, Karolina and I should get going. I think my mother was expecting me over for brunch, so I should probably get over there and do some damage control.”

“Yeah, Nate and I have plans later this evening so I need to get back to our apartment and get ready, but thank you so much for inviting me yesterday and letting me spend the night, really!”

Blair stood up and walked the two girls to the elevator. She even hugged Karolina despite only meeting her a few days prior. “You have my number, right?” Karolina nodded. “Good, give me a call and we can go shopping sometime.”

Serena was a bit jealous that Blair surprisingly liked Karolina that much. “Bye, B. Things will get better, okay?” The elevator closed and the two of them were alone as they rode all the way down to the lobby. “I’m surprised Blair has been so hospitable. It usually takes her a while to warm up to people.” 

“She seems perfectly nice. I think I’ll take her up on her offer to go shopping sometime.”

“You should! Blair is a great shopper. Plus, I worry how she is going to be after I fly back to Los Angeles tomorrow.” They finally made it to the lobby and were about to go their separate ways when Karolina mustered the courage to ask Serena a personal question about Blair. 

“Forgive me for being so upfront, but did something happen between Chuck and Blair?” 

Serena tried to play it off like she had no idea what Karolina was talking about. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I heard Blair’s mother when she was speaking to Blair about the divorce and she asked her if it had anything to do with Chuck Bass.”

“She really asked that?” 

“Yeah, it’s weird right? Nate told me that, even though Blair grew up with all of you guys, Chuck and Blair didn’t really know each other and that they were nothing more than acquaintances. He also insinuated that Chuck.... didn’t really like her.”

Serena scoffed in disbelief. “Nate said that about Chuck and Blair? Really?”

“Is there something wrong?” Karolina was obviously confused. 

“Is that all Nate said about Chuck and Blair?”

“Yeah?”

“Nate’s lying to you.” Serena didn’t want to come between Nate and his fiancée, but she couldn’t find it in herself to lie to a girl she practically just met. “Chuck and Blair have a fairly complicated history.”

“Well, is it bad? Should I be worried?”

“No, no, there’s nothing to worry about. Things between them didn’t necessarily end on bad terms, actually.”

“Wait, did they actually date? I thought Chuck barely dated anyone before Marceline.”

“They’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship since high school. It went on for, like, four years until they finally ended things after the prince proposed to Blair when she was, like, twenty."

“Four years? It must have been serious.” 

“It was. And it was pretty messy at times, too. They both did some pretty horrible things to each other. Their relationship came between Nate and Chuck at one point.”

“I thought nothing could come between Nate and Chuck.”

“Nate and Blair were together for a _really_ long time before she started seeing Chuck. It’s too much to go into right now, I’m sorry.” Serena began to walk out of the apartment building. “I’m sorry Nate lied to you. I would tell you everything else, but it’s not really my place. Plus I don’t have hours to relay all of our histories to you.”

Karolina stayed in the lobby after Serena left. She was confused as to why Nate lied to her about the nature of Chuck and Blair’s relationship, but she was angry at herself for not realizing he was lying in the first place. _It’s been years, but Nate Archibald still holds the gold medal for being the worst liar in Manhattan._

She was also confused as to why Marceline had never mentioned the fact that Chuck and Blair have history. _Chuck must have lied to her. She must not know._

Before she knew it, she was dialing Nate’s number. “Hey, yeah, we need to talk."

  
  



	11. Is This What I Think It Is?

It was already past noon on Saturday and Serena was on her way back to the penthouse she grew up in after realizing she was late for brunch. _She rarely sees her enough as is, she might as well make an effort to spend time with her while she is in town (even if Lily forced her to come in the first place)!_

The familiar default ringtone of an iPhone started coming from Serena’s purse. “Hello?” she asked without even checking to see who was calling in the first place. 

“Serena! Holy shit, you need to come over to The Empire _right fucking now_.” 

“Marceline, is everything okay?” Serena couldn’t tell if she was excited or in distress. 

“Yes, everything is _perfect_ ! You need to come over right now before Chuck gets back, I _need_ to show you something and I don’t want to tell you over the phone because I want to see your face!” She was practically shrieking into the phone, for it made Serena wince. 

Serena let out a sigh as she debated whether or not to blow off her mom. “Can it wait? I was just on my way to visit my mother.”

“ _No_ , it absolutely _cannot_ wait. _Get over here!_ ” Marceline hung up before Serena could object. She shoved her phone back into her purse and she hailed a cab. 

“Take me to The Empire Hotel, please.” Serena was a bit annoyed that Marceline wouldn’t tell her whatever she needed to say over the phone, but she reminded herself that she was one of her best friends and, like her mother, she does not get to see her nearly as often as she would like. “Lily Humphrey is just going to have to wait a bit,” Serena mumbled to herself in the back of the cab. 

The driver confusedly looked into his rearview mirror and made eye contact with Serena. “Did you say something?”

Serena awkwardly laughed and shifted her head to look out of the window and avoid looking into the driver’s eyes. “No, sorry.”

\---

The elevator dinged every time Serena passed a new floor until she finally reached the penthouse. She waltzed into the penthouse to find Marceline standing in the living room with her hands behind her back, hiding something. “What do you have in your hands?” Serena tried to walk behind Marceline and see what the surprise was. 

Marceline shifted her body so that Serena wouldn’t spoil the surprise. “Patience is a virtue, Serena.” She let out a sarcastic laugh in response. “I think you’re going to want to take a seat before I show you,” Marceline added, a bright, white smile spread across her perfectly proportionate face. 

Between the two of them, if they told someone that one of them was a professional model, they would never guess Marceline. Although she was insanely thin and had incredible bone structure, she was no match for Serena. Her golden hair always looked like it was freshly blown out even if she just woke up, she strutted down every sidewalk like it was a runway, and her presence in the room was so loud it was impossible to ignore. Sure, Marceline was beautiful and accomplished enough to be attractive to Chuck Bass, but it was not like she built her career from the ground up. She had Serena van der Woodsen to thank for finally putting her on the map in the modeling industry and her boyfriend’s mind.

For the entire cab ride over to the Upper West Side, Serena tried to think about what Marceline could possibly have to show her, but she just could not come up with anything. Sitting next to Marceline as she waited for her to bring her hand forward, it finally dawned on her what it might be and her stomach dropped. 

“Okay, so I mentioned it to you the other night at dinner that Chuck and I were thinking about going to Fiji for Christmas, right?” Serena slowly nodded her head, her stomach still queasy. “Well, it occurred to me that I might need to renew my passport because I just _could not_ remember for the life of me when I got it.”

Serena just wanted Marceline to show her already so that she could stop speculating. “Just come out with it!” 

Marceline took a breath before she continued. “So I went into the safe to get it out and _look what I fucking found!”_ She brought her arms out from behind her back and dropped something in Serena’s lap. 

“ _No!_ ” Serena’s mouth dropped as she examined the little black box in her hands. Her suspicions were confirmed. “Marcie, is this what I think it is?”

“Yes! Open it, open it!” Serena flipped the box open to reveal the most gorgeous Harry Winston engagement ring she had ever seen, but her admiration for it was gone within a second. “Isn’t it gorgeous?” Marceline waited for her best friend’s approval of the ring, but when Serena didn’t speak she grew concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, it’s truly gorgeous, Marceline…” _But this was not the first time Serena had seen this particular ring._

“...but?” Serena looked into her friend’s green eyes and was crushed to find that they were no longer filled with excitement. 

“I really don’t know how to say this,” Serena started. Marceline became tense as she waited for Serena to continue. “I don’t think this ring is for you.”

“What are you talking about? Why wouldn’t it be for me? _It was in Chuck’s safe and it is obviously an engagement ring._ ”

Serena mumbled to herself, “I can’t believe he kept it.”

“ _Kept it?_ Serena, what the hell are you talking about?” Serena stared at the ring and thought about who it was truly meant for. “Serena?”

“Sorry.” Serena was snapped out of whatever trance the ring had her in. 

“Serena, you’re really confusing me right now. You _have_ to tell me what’s going on. What’s wrong with the ring? Who else would he give it to?”

“I just want to preface whatever I am about to say to you with this: I am _so_ happy that you and Chuck are happy together. I know how much you two love each other, and I have no doubt in my mind that Chuck is going to propose to you.” Marceline perked up when she heard this, but little did she know that Serena was telling a flat out lie. She had no reason to believe Chuck was going to propose to her anytime soon, but she only said that to make her friend feel better. “But I just don’t think he’s going to propose to you with _this_ ring.” 

She took the box from Serena’s hands and admired the ring that she thought was going to belong to her sometime soon. “What makes you say that?”

Serena took a breath and shifted herself so that she was looking at Marceline head on. “I know that I didn’t really mention Blair a lot before, but when I did, I never really mentioned her... _relationships._ ” 

There was a confused look on Marceline’s face. “What does Blair and her relationships have to do with this?”

“Has Chuck ever told you anything about Blair?”

Serena was surprised to see her friend instantly roll her eyes. “Barely. Before Thanksgiving, I swear he has never breathed a word about her. When we got back here, I tried asking him a few questions about her and he got really standoffish. He basically said that, before she went and married the prince, they were nothing more than acquaintances. It seemed like he honestly did not like her _at all.”_ A scoff escaped Serena’s mouth, immediately concerning Marceline. “Is that not true?”

“I don’t understand why they would do this, but Chuck and Nate are lying. Karolina told me, like, an hour ago that Nate said the same exact thing.”

“I don’t follow.”

Serena reached out and placed her hands on Marceline’s as they sat in her lap. “Chuck was going to give that engagement ring to Blair.”

“ _What?!”_

“He bought it, like, eight years ago.”

“ _I didn’t even know they dated._ ”

“I’m sorry for not telling you, Marcie. I guess I just assumed that Chuck told you.”

“No, he never mentioned anything. I was under the impression that I was his _first_ and _only_ real girlfriend.” Serena didn’t really know what to say. “They were _that_ serious that he proposed to her?”

“Technically, he never proposed to her. He was going to on two separate occasions, but the timing was wrong and it didn’t work out.”

“Did she know?”

“Yeah, but we found out after the fact. Chuck got mugged and shot in Prague and I had to collect his belongings in Paris, one of them being this ring.”

“ _Chuck was shot?”_

Serena drew a sharp breath in and said, “Did he really not tell you _any_ of this?”

“No.” Marceline stood up from her spot on the couch and started pacing around the room. “I just don’t understand why he would lie to me about her. He knows I’m not one to get jealous, why should it matter? I don’t even care that she’s back in Manhattan. Frankly, I was kind of hoping to become friends with her.”

“I don’t know why he would lie to you about that, either. Maybe he thought he was protecting you by not telling you?” Serena suggested. 

Marceline continued to pace around the room before abruptly sitting back down on the couch. “He told me he _didn’t know her at all.”_

Serena slowly nodded her head. “They’ve known each other practically their whole lives. They were _really close friends_ even before they got together.” Marceline continued to pace around the room as she took in all of this information. “Their history is really complicated, but I can assure you that it is _completely over_ between them.” Again, Serena was telling a total lie. Although it has been seven years, she figured they both still had feelings for each other. _Chuck and Blair would always have feelings for each other._ “Believe me, they let each other go a long time ago. Chuck was actually the one who encouraged Blair to commit to the prince.”

“It’s not like she got divorced and came back here for him. I mean, this is her hometown.”

“Exactly,” Serena added. “I think Blair just wants to start fresh, and I know Chuck has been happier than ever with you. I mean, he’s sober now and his businesses are thriving. I don’t think Blair purposefully wants to fuck with Chuck, especially since she knows she knows how badly she broke his heart all those years ago.”

“Their breakup was that messy?”

“I don’t think anyone ever thought Chuck would love anyone else, but that’s _obviously not true_ because _he loves you so much_ , Marcie.” Again with the lies. Serena was just trying to make her friend feel better. One moment she thinks she is getting engaged to her long-term boyfriend, the next she’s finding out that he’s been lying to her for the entirety of their relationship. Serena had seen what Chuck and Marceline were like together, but she wasn’t entirely convinced that he loved her as much as he loved Blair. 

“I thought I was the first girl Chuck ever loved,” Marceline said under her breath. She had begun to pick at her cuticles to distract herself. 

“So what? _You’re going to be the last.”_ Serena lifted Marceline’s chin with her hand and they smiled at each other. “I do think you need to speak with Chuck, though.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to be a pleasant conversation. You know, we _never_ fight. He got short with me the other night after I probed him about Blair, but that’s it.” They sat in silence for a few moments before Marceline became more angry. “You know what, I need to go talk with him right now and set this straight. Lying to my face like that is fucking ridiculous, I don’t know why I just sat there and tried to convince myself that it was okay because it _fucking_ _isn’t.”_

“Hold on.” Serena heard that she got a text and checked her phone. “It’s my mother. She’s saying I need to get over to her apartment as soon as possible.”

“Chuck just texted me and told me to meet him at Lily’s, too,” Marceline said as she checked her phone. 

“Looks like family brunch just got a lot more interesting.”

  
  



	12. I Can Be Civil

Serena and Marceline hopped into a cab and made their way over to Lily’s, sitting in silence the entire time. Serena could tell that Marceline was trying to distract herself from everything they just spoke about back at the penthouse, but nothing seemed to be working. She bounced her leg up and down, picked at her fingernails, and checked her phone every thirty seconds. When they finally got to the building, Serena stopped Marceline and spoke to her for a few moments. “Okay, I know Chuck is up there, but you have to act like nothing's wrong for now. _This is family brunch_ and I really don't want it to be dramatic.”

“You seriously want me to act like I’m not boiling with rage at the fact that my boyfriend of two years has been lying to me for the entirety of our relationship?”

“...yes.”

“Ugh, fine.” Marceline started to walk away but stopped when Serena grabbed her hand at the last minute. 

“I’m serious, Marcie. Please be civil. For me.” Serena fluttered her eyelids and weakly smiled. 

“I can be civil.” Serena let out a sigh of relief. “I’m going up, are you coming?”

Serena began to root through her purse. “No, you head on up. I need to call my assistant really quick.” Waiting for the elevator door to close with Marceline in it, Serena whipped out her phone and began to dial Blair’s number to tell her about the conversations she had with Karolina and Marceline when she was interrupted by a couple walking up to her. 

“Hey, Serena! We figured you’d be here.” Nate and Karolina were standing in front of Serena hand in hand. Serena looked to Karolina and figured she had not spoken to Nate about lying to her yet, but that she wasn’t exactly pleased to be pretending to be blissfully happy with him at that moment. 

“Nate, Karolina!” Serena leaned in and kissed their cheeks. “Did my mom invite you guys over for brunch?” 

“Yes, she did! And we just _couldn’t_ say no, could we, Nate?” 

Nate looked down at his fiancée and smiled. “Of course we couldn’t. Especially since we know how many different types of jam Lily has,” Nate added with a laugh. 

The three of them headed up the elevator to the penthouse, making small talk along the way. 

“Serena, I was just telling Nate how much fun I had with you and Blair yesterday,” Karolina said among the dings the elevator made every time they passed a new floor. 

“Yeah, she was.” Nate became a bit tense as she straightened his back and drew in a breath. Both Karolina and Serena could tell that he was nervous about something, and they both knew that it had to do with the fact that he lied to Karolina about the nature of Chuck and Blair’s relationship. “I’m glad you guys hit it off, especially since Blair is going to be sticking around. She might get a little lonely when you jet back off to Los Angeles tomorrow.”

“Oh, shit, yeah, I head back tomorrow,” Serena mumbled. Before anyone could say anything else, the elevator doors opened and they stepped into the foyer of the penthouse. Someone gathered their coats as they rounded the corner and Lily came to greet them. 

“Hello, everyone!” Lily kissed each of them on the cheek and ushered them closer to the table. There were so many people in the room, it may as well be Thanksgiving again. 

Rufus, Lily, Dan, Nate, Karolina, Chuck, Marceline, and Serena were all seated and ready to eat when Serena noticed a couple empty chairs with table settings in front of them. “Are you expecting anyone else, Mom?” She thought they may be for Eric and Jenny, but she thought they had already flown back home. 

Just as Serena finished her sentence, Eleanor and Blair entered the penthouse. “Lily, darling, how are you?” Eleanor announced with open arms. Lily jumped from her seat to go give the fashion mogul a hug. 

“I’m so glad you could make it, Eleanor. I was delighted when I called Blair and she told me you were in town.”

“Well, it’s not everyday your only child gets a divorce, doesn’t tell you about it, and flies back across the Atlantic Ocean to move back to New York City, is it? _Consider us lucky_.” There were muted laughs from the table as Eleanor made her snide comment toward Blair. Serena looked over to Marceline. If Serena had not known how angry she was with Chuck, she never would have been able to tell. She didn’t even change her demeanor when she saw Blair enter. Chuck, on the other hand, was avoiding eye contact with Marceline and stared at his lap. 

“I know family brunch isn’t usually this crowded, but I hope it’s alright I invited some stragglers,” Lily started. “It is the holidays, after all.” There was a spot next to Lily where Eleanor sat and Blair scanned the table for the remaining empty seat. It was between Serena and Chuck. 

Everyone seemed to be engrossed in their own conversations, so no one other than Serena seemed to notice Blair debating on whether or not she should sit down. 

Serena could see that she was hesitant, but the time she began to move, Blair had already made up her mind and plopped down in the empty chair next to her ex-boyfriend. Her brown curly hair bouncing on her shoulders, her perfume wafting in the air. 

She paid no attention to Chuck and inched closer to Serena to speak with her when Marceline asked, “Blair, is that Chanel No. 5?”

Trying her best to avoid looking at Chuck, Blair turned her head toward the redhead who asked her the question. “Yes, it is. You have a good nose.”

“And good taste,” Serena added. She was impressed with how polite Blair’s response was. Years ago, Blair would have made some snarky backhanded compliment in response to any girl who was romantically linked with Chuck. 

“I _love_ Chanel No. 5, too bad I can’t wear it,” Marceline said as she took a sip of water. 

Blair was intrigued as to why Marceline would say that, so she decided to probe her. “ _Why_ can’t you wear it?” 

“Oh, _Chuck hates it.”_

Serena could tell that Marceline was about to go off the rails. “Why don’t we change the

subject?”

Blair was taken aback by Marceline’s response. “Oh, he does?” She raised her eyebrows and looked at Chuck. He lifted his head and flashed a fake smile at Blair as he put his left hand on Marceline’s thigh. Noticing this, Blair looked away. “I wonder why...”

“Yes, _I wonder why_ ,” Marceline said through her teeth. “You know, now that I think about it, there are _a lot_ of things that Chuck _absolutely hates._ ”

“Like what?” Karolina inquired. It seemed like Nate and her were now joining the conversation. 

“Marcie, what are you doing?” Chuck asked. Blair cringed at the sound of him using her nickname, but she quickly brushed it off so that no one would suspect she still had feelings for him. 

Marceline ignored him and began to list the things that he previously told her he despised. “Well, Chanel No. 5, that’s for starters. Let me see, I can’t wear headbands or else he’ll cringe, I can’t watch a single Audrey Hepburn movie without him begging me to turn it off, he dreads Thanksgiving the most out of all of the major holidays, he can’t bring himself to eat a damn macaron, and I don’t think I have ever met a person who hates _peonies_ as much as Chuck Bass does. Blair, do these things happen to deal with you, by chance?”

“Excuse me?” Blair was obviously thrown off guard. She wasn’t expecting to get called out at brunch by Chuck’s girlfriend, and she _definitely_ wasn’t expecting to find out that, over the years, he has developed a distaste for all of the things she adored. It’s not like he hated these things out of coincidence after Blair and him broke up for good, for all of these things made Blair Waldorf, well…. Blair Waldorf!

Serena looked around the table and saw that everyone had stopped their individual conversations to devote their attention to whatever drama was ensuing on the other side of the table. “Marceline, _stop_.”

Chuck took his hand off of Marceline’s thigh and looked at her in pure confusion. She had never caused a scene like this before. “Where the hell is this coming from?” 

“Why have you been lying to me? Were you ever planning on filling me in about your past with Blair?”

“What is she talking about, Chuck?” Blair snatched her napkin from her lap and threw it on the table in front of her, leaning back and crossing her arms as she waited for an explanation. 

“I know the two of you used to date. Serena told me this afternoon.” 

“Chuck, did she not know?” Blair asked. 

He sat up in his chair and took a breath. “No, I haven’t exactly told her our... history.”

“I feel like Marceline and I haven’t been told _anyone’s_ histories,” Karolina chimed in. She turned to Nate and began to speak to him. “I had to find out from Serena that you were lying to me. It was _humiliating_.” 

Nate was about to apologize when Lily began to speak. “What is going on down there?”

“I don’t know,” Blair said. 

“Guys, come on, let’s just enjoy brunch,” Serena suggested. At this point, Lily, Rufus, and Eleanor had excused themselves from the table and headed upstairs to look at the renovations they had recently done. 

“I’m leaving, this is absolutely ridiculous,” Blair declared. She began to get up and out of her seat when she was stopped by Marceline. 

“Blair, _no_ , don’t go. I want you to stay. I need to hear the truth.” Blair slowly sat back down in her chair and sighed. 

Dan tried to sneak out of the dining room when Blair took notice. “No! Humphrey, if I can’t leave, then you can’t leave.”

Serena decided to back up Blair. “Yeah, Dan, it’s not like you’re not a part of this, too.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Nate questioned. _Nate Archibald was always one step behind everyone else._

“I think there has been some...miscommunication and Karolina and Marceline are just looking to find out the truth. About _all of us_ ,” Serena tried explaining. _“_ I think the best course of action here would be to just… go through _everything_.”

“I agree,” Marceline concurred. 

“Yup,” Karolina added. 

Dan sat back down at the table and laughed. “This is gonna be _good._ ”


	13. The Back of the Limo?

“Alright, where should we start?” Serena asked.

Blair was leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed in front of her chest with an annoyed look on her face. “Where is there to start? So Chuck and I used to date, _what’s the big deal?_ ” Chuck surprised himself by feeling hurt by Blair’s words. Although they dated quite a long time ago, it felt as if the wound from their breakup had been reopened for two days and someone kept putting salt in it. Hearing Blair refer to their relationship as a permanent thing of the past depressed Chuck, but he then chided himself for feeling this way about his ex-girlfriend when he had a girl who loved him sitting to his left. _Well, at least he figured she still loved him. Jury’s out on that one, at least for now._

“It’s _not_ a big deal that you two dated, Blair,” Marceline started. Blair cringed at her name coming from the mouth of one of Chuck’s girlfriends. “My problem is that I’ve been lied to for over two years!” 

“I don’t see why I can’t leave, this is obviously a conversation that you and Chuck need to have in private,” Blair said as she got up from her chair. She didn’t want to sit there and listen to Marceline discuss her previous relationship with Chuck for one more second. 

Serena jumped up and grabbed Blair’s shoulder, pushing her back down into her chair. “Blair, you’re not going anywhere. I think we can all agree that we all owe Karolina and Marceline an apology.”

“Apology? What do I have to apologize for?” Dan questioned. 

“Dan, come on, man,” Nate pleaded. “We know you’re not involved with _this_ ,” he motioned to his pre-law fiancée and Chuck’s model girlfriend, “but you’re involved with everything else. Just stay until we’ve come completely clean, please?”

Dan looked to Serena for backup, but she was giving him puppy dog eyes. “Please?”

He let out a sigh as he relaxed back in his chair. “Fine, but I’m not chiming in unless you guys forget things or I need to vouch for my own character.”

Serena turned her attention back to the other five people sitting at the table. She noticed that Blair and Chuck looked especially tense. “Do you guys want to explain everything or should I just try and summarize everything?”

“Just start talking,” Chuck said with a sigh. He held his forehead with one of his hands as he waited for his girlfriend to hear all of the awful things their friend group had done to each other over the past decade. 

“Okay. I’m going to start with Nate, Blair, and I.” Serena took a breath. “Nate and Blair dated for quite a long time. Frankly, we all thought she was going to become Mrs. Nate Archibald, but they broke up our junior year of high school. Before that, Nate had lost his virginity to me when he was still with Blair. Ashamed of what I did, I ran away to boarding school. When I came back, Nate was still with Blair, but he still had feelings for me. He told Blair about how we had sex even though they were saving themselves for each other. They broke up a couple of months later when he told Blair he didn’t love her anymore. This was around the time I started seeing Dan. We dated on and off until we graduated high school when our parents finally got together. To get back to Nate and Blair, the night they broke up, Blair went to Chuck’s party at Victrola alone. That night she lost her virginity to Chuck in the back of the limo-”

“ _The back of the limo?”_ Marceline interrupted. 

“Stop, let Serena keep talking!” Karolina said, obviously engrossed in the gossip. 

“Anyway, Blair lost her virginity to Chuck in the back of the limo and they started sleeping together and spending more time together because Chuck had feelings for Blair. Nate and Blair ended up getting back together after cotillion wherein she faked losing her virginity to him. They dated for a while until Blair had a pregnancy scare and I told Chuck and Dan about it. Blair told Chuck she wasn’t pregnant and that things were done for good between them. Chuck was upset that Blair officially ended things, so he told Gossip Girl about how Blair slept with two people in one week to make her look like a hypocrite since everyone knew she was the Virgin Queen. Nate didn’t think the blast was true until Jenny told him that Blair had slept with Chuck since she overheard me telling Dan. You can imagine what happens next, Nate breaks up with Blair, Nate tells Chuck they’re done being friends, and Chuck and Blair stop seeing each other again. Fast forward to my mom and Bart’s wedding, Georgina came back into town and she was trying to ruin _everything_ , so we all had to come together and get rid of her.”

Karolina looked confused. “Who is Georgina?”

Dan lifted his index finger as he said, “She’s a psychopath who terrorizes everything she comes into contact with. She was doing so at the time until Blair sent her off to boot camp.”

“Right,” Serena continued. “So, Dan and I break up at the wedding, Nate and Vanessa break up at the wedding, and Chuck and Blair make up at the wedding after he and Nate reconciled after Chuck told him he loved Blair.”

“Vanessa?” Marceline looked to Chuck for help on who Serena was talking about. 

“My ex-girlfriend who happens to be Nate’s ex-girlfriend, Chuck’s ex-fling, and my ex-best friend, too,” Dan added for clarification. 

“Thank you, Dan,” Serena said. “Chuck and Blair were dating for, like, a week before he was supposed to take her to Tuscany for summer vacation when he stood her up. She spent her summer in France with her dads and Chuck stayed here at the Hamptons with my family. He tried apologizing to Blair when she got back, but she brought along some guy she met at the last minute to make him jealous. 

“He wasn’t just _some guy_ ,” Blair said. “His name was Marcus and he was a _lord._ ”

“Yes, Blair, a lord who was sleeping with his stepmother who was, subsequently, having an affair with Nate.” Serena darted her eyes straight to him as she said his name. 

“You have an affair with an older woman?” Karolina asked Nate. 

Serena disregarded Karolina’s question and continued with the story. “Anyway, Chuck tried getting Blair to ditch him, but she wouldn’t unless he told her he loved her, which, of course, he couldn’t do. Dan and I briefly got back together, then we broke up, then they banished the lord and his sick stepmother. Chuck and Blair toyed with each other for months until Bart died. They loved each other, but neither of them could say it. Blair finally told him and he blew her off for an entire month. When he came back, Blair was being a good friend until Chuck’s evil Uncle Jack set him up in order to try and get the company back after Bart’s shocker of a will. They parted ways for a while until Chuck realized he was finally ready to tell Blair how he felt, but she started sleeping with Carter Baizen after she got rejected from Yale and her life was going up in flames. Seeing Blair with Carter made Chuck jealous, so we blackmailed him into leaving the country. After that, Blair was trying to destroy anything else she had left in her life at the time, so Chuck and I tried to stop her. She blew us off and reconciled with Nate for a brief period of time, which pushed Chuck and Nate farther apart since it was evident that he still had feelings for Blair and she still had feelings for him. Blair asked Chuck again whether or not he truly had feelings for her, to which he lied and said he did not. He told me that he loved her but that he could not make her happy, so she stayed with Nate until she broke up with him at prom after they won king and queen. After graduation, Chuck found out that Nate and Blair broke up. He was finally going to tell her how he felt when Gossip Girl sent out a blast about how Blair slept with Jack over New Year’s and Chuck slept with Vanessa a few weeks earlier. Blair thought that their relationship was done for good when Chuck ran away to Europe, but he only went to get her some of her favorite things for when he finally told her he loved her. They dated for nearly a year as Blair went to NYU before Chuck traded her to Jack in order to get The Empire back after Chuck’s mother crossed him-”

“Your mother?” Marceline furrowed her eyebrows as she looked at Chuck. 

He didn’t feel like getting into it about his mother at that moment, for he failed to mention the fact that she was actually alive to Marceline. “I’ll explain that when we get home, it’s not important right now.”

“You seriously didn’t tell her about Elizabeth? Jesus, Chuck,” Serena chided. “Blair broke up with him and then he tried getting her back by throwing Dorota a shotgun wedding before her family came into town, but they ended things for good.”

Marceline looked at Serena with another look of confusion on her face. “Dorota? I thought she was Penelope’s maid.” 

Blair decided to respond this time. “Dorota was my maid until I left, she’s married to Vanya and they have two kids. She practically raised me…” she trailed off. She had been in New York City for forty-eight whole hours and she had yet to contact Dorota. Knowing Dorota, she probably already knew that Blair was back, to which Blair realized she had to prepare for the verbal Polish beatdown she was going to inevitably receive. 

“Then, it came out that my mom was sick and my dad resurfaced to treat her. There was an event at Columbia that we all went to in order to support my dad, and that is where Blair found out that she had been accepted to there as a transfer student-”

“ _Chuck is the boyfriend that got Blair into Columbia?”_ Karolina asked as she shifted her finger from Chuck and Blair. 

_“How the hell did you get her into Columbia, Chuck?”_ Everyone could tell that Marceline was a bit miffed at learning this information although she had absolutely no reason to be. _She hadn’t even moved to New York by the time that happened, sheesh!_

“Are you guys going to let me finish?” Serena waited for someone to interrupt her again but no one did, so she continued. “Chuck and Blair were apart for a few weeks while she was dating some soccer or football player or whatever he was from Columbia and I was still dating Nate. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention I kind of had an affair with Nate’s cousin Tripp while he was married to Maureen, but he ended up being a complete asshole. Nate and I began dating earlier that year, but Nate was jealous when Carter Baizen resurfaced because he was helping me look for my dad. Of course, we found my date, duh, but then Nate and I kept growing apart. I spent the night at the loft in Brooklyn with Dan after we both passed out and Jenny sent a picture of us to Gossip Girl. I kind of broke up with both Nate and Dan that night at the hospital after Dorota had her baby. Also, that previous night, Chuck gave Blair an ultimatum and told her to meet him at the top of the Empire State Building the next night or else he would close his heart to her forever. She told him she wouldn’t be there, but she had to have Dorota distract her the entire day to make sure she wouldn’t go. She finally gathered the courage to go when Dorota went into labor, so Blair was late. When she got there, Chuck was gone and there was a bouquet of peonies in the trash. She headed over to The Empire to try and fix things with him, and they did, but only briefly. When they got to the hospital to visit Dorota and the baby, Chuck was going to propose to Blair when Dan punched him in the face. Earlier that night, Chuck slept with Jenny, who went and told Eric, who went and told Dan. Blair told Chuck that they were over for good and he ran away to Prague while Blair and I spent the summer at Eleanor and Cyrus’ in Paris. No one heard from Chuck all summer because no one knew that he got shot in Prague after muggers tried stealing the engagement ring. A French girl named Eva nursed him back to health, but she didn’t know who he was. They moved to Paris and that’s where Blair saw him walking in the street. I tracked him down and tried to get him to return to his life in New York, but he wouldn’t listen to me, so I had to get Blair to go and talk him out of leaving everything behind because I knew she was the only one who could stop him. She didn’t want to go because she had just met Louis and was going on a date with him, but she did, and Chuck came back home with Eva. Blair left Louis behind and we all tried getting back to our normal lives, but Blair drove Eva away, causing Chuck to declare war on Blair. They went back and forth for a few weeks until Nate and I made them sign a treaty. There was peace in the kingdom for barely a day, but only because they broke the treaty to get back together. They were sleeping together before they decided to get back together for good and put everything behind them, but Blair realized that she wanted to be her own person before she was Chuck Bass’ girlfriend. Before that, Nate had been dating a girl from Columbia named Juliet, and I seriously do not feel like getting into her storyline, so I’m just going to say that she’s just as crazy as Georgina and she tried sabotaging everything in everyone’s lives, including trying to have me overdose on drugs.” Serena looked around and saw the two newbies with their mouths open and their eyes wide. “The prince came back, took Blair on a few dates, and proposed to her, in which she, of course, said yes. Blair was going to leave him after Chuck saved her after she was kidnapped by Russell Thorpe, but when she was about to break off their engagement, Chuck told Louis that they had his blessing. After that, Blair and Chuck let each other go for good, making that the last time they saw each other until-”

“Until two nights ago,” Chuck finished. 

“ _But you kept the engagement ring you bought for a girl you broke up with seven years ago because she went and married someone else.”_ Marceline’s voice was full of hurt and Chuck didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t even dare look at Blair to see her reaction, but if he did he would have seen that she didn’t lift her head but stared down at the floor, her eyebrows raised in shock.

Serena stopped to catch her breath as everyone sat with what they just heard. The table was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Suddenly, Marceline stood up and spoke again. “I’m not even going to inquire about who the fuck _Russell Thorpe_ is because that entire thing was _fucking crazy_. I need some fresh air.” She started to walk away, Chuck following her close behind. " _Don’t follow me, Chuck.”_ He stopped and watched her walk out of the apartment as Serena chased after her. Karolina and Nate gathered their coats to leave, for she was quite upset with him, but she actually wanted him to follow her so that they could have a private conversation. While everyone was in a frenzy to leave, Dan slipped out, more excited than ever to finally escape from that hell of a brunch. 

Chuck turned back around to the table and saw that he was all alone with the only person left from brunch: _Blair Waldorf._


	14. You Can Do Whatever You Want and Get Away With It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for making this one so short! I hope the fact that it's all Chuck and Blair can make up for that :)

Chuck stood and stared at his ex-girlfriend for a moment. It seemed as if he was mesmerized by her beauty; the blush on her cheeks complemented her skin tone perfectly, the gloss on her lips made them look as plump as ever, and her mascara separated her eyelashes in a way that caused her chocolate brown eyes to pop like they never had before. He admired her until she turned her head and met his gaze with hers. He snapped out of his trance and took a few steps toward her and spoke before she did. “Blair, I apologize for putting you in this situation. I just want you to know that it was _never_ my intention for Marceline to put you on the spot in front of everyone here today or, frankly, _ever-”_

“Chuck, stop,” Blair interrupted. She stood up from her spot at the table and took a few steps toward him but stopped a few feet short to keep a significant difference between them. “I just don’t want anything like this to ever happen again. Please.” He could tell that she was upset at the conversation that they all just had. “That was _humiliating,_ Chuck. I know you may not care to sit here in front of our friends and hear about everything that all of us have done over the years, but some of us do.”

“Blair, I care, _believe me_.” 

“You may care, but you don’t care the same way that I do. I have an image to maintain, Chuck. You can do whatever you want and get away with it, you’ve been doing it for the past twenty-eight years. Sure, Karolina and Marceline can sit here and hear about how you took my virginity in the back of your sacred limo or about how I cheated on my now ex-husband with you at a stranger’s bar mitzvah, but they won’t see you any differently because _they know you._ I met these girls two nights ago and they already think I’m a _whore._ And it’s not just them. You know that, because I am a woman, I am not granted the same privileges as you, Chuck. The same thing happened with Nate’s mother and Girls Inc., remember?” 

Chuck slowly nodded his head. “Blair, I will fix your image in their eyes, I promise. I will make sure that they understand that I took part in what you did just as equally-”

“That’s not going to change anything, Chuck. That is not going to wipe the embarrassment I just experienced at this table away. The only thing we can do to make up for this social catastrophe is try and avoid each other as much as possible, even if it proves difficult.”

“But I don’t want you to have to-”

“You know what, Chuck? There’s nothing keeping me in New York. You and I both know I didn’t come back for you, Serena doesn’t live here anymore, and my entire family lives in France. I’m too old to go back to school, I don’t have a career here, there is nothing tying me down to Manhattan. My reappearance has obviously caused a strain on your otherwise perfect relationship. Maybe it was a mistake for me to come back…” her voice trailed off. 

“That’s not fair, Blair.” She looked up at him with a confused look. “You told me back at the train station in Paris that, although your world would be easier if I didn’t come back, it wasn’t your world without me in it. So I came back. Just because we’re not together, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you. Yes, my life has been easier with you away in Monaco, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been as happy as possible. We don’t have to be together for me to be happy, you just have to be here at all for me to be happy, Blair.”

She didn’t know how to respond to this. She couldn’t tell if he was somehow admitting that he wanted to be with her or if he was only being a friend, but she knew she was confused. Finally, Blair put her hands up, closed her eyes, and took a breath. She didn’t want to show emotions and further embarrass herself by interpreting his words incorrectly, so she tried to be as clear as possible. “Chuck, it’s been a long time. I don’t know who you are today, and I don’t know if you’re any different than the Chuck I knew seven years ago, but I can _assure you_ that I am a different Blair than the one _you knew_ seven years ago.”

Blair couldn’t tell, but Chuck’s heart broke as she spoke about how she was a different person. Although he tried to think of her for as little as possible for the better half of the last decade, he still hoped that she was the same girl he knew and loved. _The same girl he still loves, even if he isn’t ready to admit it to himself yet._ “I’d like to think that I’m different, but I’m obviously not since I couldn’t find the courage to tell my girlfriend the truth.” 

“You are not a coward,” Blair replied quickly. She was offended that he still thought of himself as cowardly. Although she did not know exactly the type of person he was at that moment, she was certain that he didn’t revert back to his high school self. “You had grown so much even in the time that we were together. I know that you lied to her, and for why I may never know, but take what happened today and… learn from it, I suppose.” 

“Thank you, Blair,” Chuck said. He noticed that she had taken a few steps closer to him while she spoke her little speech. A few moments ago, he felt as if the world could fit between them, but now she was so close that he could recognize the scent of the shampoo she uses, the scent of her perfume on her skin, the scent of an Altoid she recently popped into her mouth. The only thing he wanted to do in that moment was kiss her. “I appreciate your kind words, but I just hope I can fix whatever I just broke.” _If he couldn't be with Blair, he might as well try and salvage his relationship with Marceline._

Blair suddenly became annoyed at the thought of Chuck reconciling with Marceline. She knew she wanted him to be happy, but for some reason, she didn’t want him to be happy with _her_. Then again she still did not know if she would only be content with Chuck’s happiness if she herself was the sole reason for it. Little did she know that she had been the source of his pain for the past two days… and seven years. 

They let the silence sit between them for a few moments. At last, Blair spoke her final statement. “I can tell you really love her. Maybe it’s time for you to buy a new engagement ring and put the other one away forever.” Saying those words to Chuck were harder than Blair ever imagined. As much as she wanted to _try_ and be with Chuck one more time, there was no guarantee that they would be able to make things work. She figured he was as happy as possible with Marceline and that it would be selfish of her to try and steal his chance at eternal happiness in an attempt for herself to gain some that would not even last her the rest of her life. 

_If only they both knew how much each of them was yearning for the other, then maybe they would stop lying to themselves and be together for real and forever._


	15. Then Why Did You Keep the Ring?

Chuck left Lily’s apartment shortly after Blair did, but he decided to put off going back to The Empire in case Marceline was there. He figured he should give her as much space to make sure she wasn’t feeling suffocated by him. He considered going to the bar at The Palace, but he was so proud of the progress he had made with his sobriety over the years that he did not want to fall back into old habits. _He also didn’t want Blair finding out that he eventually got sober only to get shitfaced a few years later because he got into a fight with his girlfriend._ He also considered going to Harry Winston, picking out the most expensive engagement ring they had, and proposing to Marceline the moment he sees her, but he decided that doing that may not be the best idea. He ended up walking around Central Park until dark, passing the duck pond that held a special place in Blair’s heart and sitting on a bench to watch the different people walk by. 

He walked into his penthouse to find the living room empty and his bedroom door closed. He cracked open the door and saw Marceline sleeping as peaceful as ever on her designated side of the bed. Rather than walk in and disturb her, Chuck decided to sleep on the couch. He was almost asleep when he heard Marceline stirring in the bedroom. 

“Chuck?” She entered the living room and stood over the couch, her arms crossed over her chest and her red hair a perfect mess. He noticed she had not taken off her makeup before she went to bed, for mascara was smudged below her eyes. _Perhaps she cried herself to sleep, too._

Chuck sat up and moved the blanket he was using off of his body. “Hi. I saw you were sleeping and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

She didn’t say anything for a few moments. Finally, she addressed the elephant in the room. “I’m sorry for causing a scene today.”

“It’s okay.” He lifted her right arm and caressed her left shoulder as she continued to stand above him. “I shouldn’t have lied to you.”

“Why did you?” She walked around the couch and sat with her legs crossed next to him. 

“I don’t know.”

“Do you still have feelings for her?”

“ _No_ ,” he quickly replied. He stared at the floor as he said this, causing Marceline not to be entirely convinced. 

“Then why did you keep the ring?” 

Chuck let out a sigh as he contemplated his answer. “I didn’t really know what to do with it. I bought it so long ago, and at the time I was so heartbroken that I decided to hold on to it. I guess I kind of… forgot I even had it in the safe until today.” Oh, Chuck Bass doing what he does best: _lying_. He knew the true reason he kept the ring, and it was the same reason that Marceline suspected. He kept it in hopes of one day giving it to Blair for good, he hadn’t forgotten about it at all. “I’m sorry for hurting you.”

Although Marceline was not entirely convinced by Chuck’s answers, she decided that it was best not to get into a fight with him about it and trust him. After all, she still loved him and hoped to marry him and wanted to have a family with him. In her eyes, this was just a slight hiccup that they were going to overcome before they knew it. “Thank you. I think we can both learn something from today.”

Chuck looked into Marceline’s eyes and noted that he much preferred brown ones to her green ones. “I _love_ you.” _God, it’s like he had to force the word out of his mouth._ He leaned forward and kissed her soft, pink lips that were plump from crying. “Blair is leaving. She’s not staying in New York, she told me herself. We can start fresh.” He decided to leave out the part where he practically begged her _not_ to leave.

“I suppose that’s a positive,” she said with a slight chuckle. She wiped a stray tear that dropped from her left eye and regained her composure. “Let’s go to bed.”

\---

Blair was still awake when her mother finally came home. Eleanor was acting as if she didn’t even notice her daughter left brunch without telling her. “Blair, darling, I need to discuss something with you.”

She closed the book she was reading and put it on the coffee table in front of her. She picked her legs up and tucked them under her body. “Is everything alright?”

“Everything _will_ be alright once we are finished here, Blair.” Eleanor sat down next to her and took a breath. “I know the timing of this conversation is a bit, well, strange, but I don’t want to wait one moment longer.” Blair raised an eyebrow as she waited for her mother to continue. “Because I want _you_ to take over my company.”

“What?” This was the last thing Blair was expecting to come out of her mother’s mouth.

“I have decided to retire and I know you have never quite expressed a desire to partake in what I do, but-”

“Have you _seen_ my closet?” Blair asked with a smile on her face. 

“Well, what do you say? Will a Waldorf woman carry on the name?”

Blair didn’t even hesitate before she gave her mother her answer. “Yes, of course!” They both leaned in for a tight squeeze and held each other. 

This is exactly what Blair needed. Although she hadn’t even been divorced for a week, she already felt lost. For seven years, her daily life was planned for her. An appearance here, a charity gala there. Being back in New York for forty-eight hours made her realize how lost she was, and hearing her mother ask her if she would take over her company for her was like a question sent directly from heaven. _She can finally be the strong, independent, powerful business woman she had always dreamt of becoming._

“I know I’ve been running the company from Paris for quite a few years now, but I want you to know that you have every right to move it back over to New York. I don’t know where your head is at right now, whether or not you would even like to continue living in Europe or stay in Manhattan, I don’t know. You don’t have to make this decision right away-”

“I don't know, I'm going to have to think about it.” Blair was surprised at how undecided she was. Earlier that day, she was dead-set on moving to Paris to be closer to her family and get as far away from Manhattan as possible, but now she was thinking of possibly staying in New York after all. _Perhaps she was having a change of heart after a certain someone asked her to stay._

“That is _perfectly fine,_ my dear _._ I wouldn't expect you to _not_ take the time to think about it.” Eleanor kissed Blair’s cheek and thought about how proud she was of the girl she raised sitting in front of her. "It is an honor to be your mother, Blair Waldorf."

Tears began to form in Blair's chocolate brown eyes. "Thank you, mother."

They both gained their composure and continued to talk about Blair's future as the head of Waldorf Designs. "Now, what will your first order of business be?"

Blair thought for a moment, but then it seemed a lightbulb went off. "I think I need to call an old employee of mine," she said, a genuine smile creeping across her face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a little change at the end of this chapter, sorry! I can never commit to a plot line until after I post the chapter, ugh!


	16. Choose to Live Here

Serena woke up early on Sunday morning to the sun shining in through the windows of her childhood bedroom and a very, very loud alarm on her phone. With pillows on the floor and her duvet half off the bed, she concluded that she must have been tossing and turning all night. This theory was further supported by the fact that she felt like complete and utter shit. 

She groaned as she stretched in the bed. For a moment, she had completely forgotten the drama that occurred at brunch yesterday, but when she remembered, she immediately perked up and checked her phone.

When she chased after Marceline yesterday, she tried to speak with her, but her friend wanted to be left alone. Serena was more than relieved to have a text message from her that detailed how she and Chuck talked and avoided going to bed angry. _What would she do if two of her closest friends were almost engaged to Chuck Bass, the boy billionaire who also happened to be her adopted brother?_

She also attempted to call Karolina the previous night, but she was sent straight to voicemail. Another text message she had gotten in the middle of the night detailed the same scenario that Marceline described, except switching the couple from Chuck and Marceline to Nate and Karolina. 

Finally, she saved the best for last and checked to see if Blair had texted her back. The night before, Serena texted Blair and asked her if she wanted to talk about what happened before she had to get back on her flight to Los Angeles, but she fell asleep before she could see what her best friend said in response. To her luck, Blair told her that she had news that she wanted to tell her in person, so they should just meet for breakfast at Café Boulud. Serena looked at the time, realized she only had about two hours until she had to leave, and quickly responded to Blair and told her she would be there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. 

In order to get to the café without enough time to spare to actually sit down, have a final in-person conversation with her best friend, and maybe have a few bites of a croissant, Serena knew she had to be ready five minutes ago. Her hair still looked perfect, so there was no need for her to shampoo and condition it in the shower, but she did decide to brush her teeth while she was in there in order to save a bit more time. By the time she came out of the bathroom, somehow looking as perfect as ever, she saw that Larissa had already packed all of her things. _Thank God for the help._

Serena brought her bags out into the main portion of the apartment and found Rufus and Lily eating breakfast at the same table where shit hit the fan yesterday afternoon. 

“Serena, please, join us for one final breakfast,” Lily said as she set down her newspaper and took her reading glasses off. 

Her daughter leaned in and kissed her on both cheeks. “Mom, I am _so_ sorry, but I’m already late to meet Blair at Café Boulud.”

“So you’re just going to leave without saying goodbye to anyone but us or Blair?” Rufus asked. 

“What about saying goodbye to Eric, Jenny, and Dan?”

“And Chuck and Marceline and Nate and Karolina? Even _Eleanor_ would be sad that you left so soon!” Lily continued. 

“I think Blair really needs me right now, Mom.”

Lily immediately became concerned. “Is everything alright? Did something happen with the divorce?”

“No, not exactly,” Serena started. She considered sitting down and telling her mother the entire story of what happened yesterday, but she really needed to get going. “Listen, how about I get Noah to book me in New York City for the last three weeks in December and the first week in January so that I am _all yours_ for Christmas and New Years? During those four weeks, I can catch you up on all of the gossip and have breakfast together every single day, I promise.”

Lily’s face softened as her daughter concluded her proposition. “Oh, alright. I suppose if that is what it is going to take to get you to stay in Manhattan for at least a week, I might as well let you go now.” She stood up and embraced her daughter, thinking this would be the last time she would see her for at least a couple of weeks. “I love you, Serena. Have a safe flight and call me the moment you land.”

Serena told her mother she loved her, said goodbye to her stepfather, and rushed to the lobby while someone followed her with her luggage. She hopped in a town car and was at the café sooner than she expected, but Blair had, of course, beaten her and was sipping her coffee as she waited. 

“Blair, I am _so sorry,_ my mother intercepted me as I was trying to leave and-”

“Oh, please, Serena, it’s fine.” Serena was surprised at how pleasant Blair was acting. “I’m just glad I get to see you before you head back to California.”

Serena sat down at the empty seat across from her brunette best friend, taking off her coat and scarf. “Yes, but I’ll be back for Christmas and New Years, so we’ll be able to spend _so_ much time together, just the two of us.” She smiled at Blair and quickly reached across the table to hold her hand, but her face was anything but ecstatic. “B, is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong. Everything’s kind of perfect, actually. Well, _as perfect as it can be, right now.”_

“What was the news that you so desperately wanted to tell me in person?” Serena remembered Blair had something to tell her, so now she was practically on the edge of her seat. 

Blair tapped her finger on the table as she thought of how she wanted to tell Serena the great news. Rather than think of something clever to say, she decided to just come out with it. “My mother is retiring. I’m going to be taking over Waldorf Designs.” 

She was expecting her best friend to simply be happy for her, but she was caught off guard to find that Serena was over the moon. “ _What? Are you kidding me? That’s amazing, Blair!”_ She was out of her seat with her arms around Blair’s shoulders. 

“Oh, wow, thank you, Serena,” Blair said as Serena let go and sat back down in her seat. “But I don’t think I’ll be here for Christmas.”

“Why?” Serena was obviously confused. “Do you have plans to go somewhere for vacation?”

“No…” Blair trailed off. She took a sip of her coffee before she continued. “I’m going to be moving to Paris as soon as possible in order to run the company.”

“What? Why?”

“Why not?”

“B, I know you love Paris, but New York is your home. You’re finally back where you belong, why would you move to another continent so soon?”

“There’s nothing keeping me here, Serena.” As the words came out of Blair’s mouth, Serena realized that they were true. “My family lives in France and you don’t even live here anymore. I mean, look at you, you’ll be back in Los Angeles in a number of hours.”

Serena knew that Blair’s logic was sound, but she didn't think she was being entirely truthful. “Are those the only reasons you want to leave?”

“I have no idea what you’re referring to.” _That’s just like the old Blair._

“Blair.” Blair raised her eyebrows, but didn’t speak. “Does this have anything to do with Chuck?”

“Of course not.” Serena glared at Blair for a few moments until she conceded. “ _So what_ if he’s another reason I want to leave? It’s not like I came back for him.”

“I know you didn’t come back for him, but is it possible that you hoped that maybe… he would be single and-”

“Chuck’s relationship status means nothing to me, Serena.” They both knew that was a flat out fucking lie. “Even if he was single, I wouldn’t pursue him, nor would he pursue me. _We are completely, one hundred perfect done with each other.”_

“Good, because Marceline told me they talked things over and now they’re back on the right track.” This bit of information irked Blair, but she didn’t let Serena know that. “If you guys are done, then why don’t you relocate the company here? She started it here, for God’s sake!”

“Oh, Serena, you’re being dramatic. I already listed my _very valid_ reasons for wanting to leave, and the events that unfolded yesterday only make me want to leave anymore. I just turned twenty-eight years old, I can’t deal with the drama anymore. It’s been a long time and it’s stressful. Also, I feel like the more that I stay, the more strain I will cause on… certain relationships, and I do not want to be considered the reason those same relationships end.”

Honestly, Serena couldn’t argue with Blair. Everything she was saying was making sense, and her choosing to move to Paris is more selfless than selfish, anyway. _If it wasn’t for yesterday’s dramatic events, Serena and Blair both would have considered them all grown up and mature._

The two old friends changed the subject and had an otherwise pleasant breakfast before Serena really had to leave or else she would miss her flight. “I’m so sorry, B. I _really_ have to go.” She truly did feel bad for leaving Blair high and dry, for she thought her friend was going to be quite lonely. Little did she know that Blair had plans to meet someone else for lunch. 

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll be spending the rest of the day with Dorota. You’ll just have to tell me the next time you’re booked in Paris.”

“Trust me, I’ll make it happen sooner rather than later.”

Blair and Serena walked out of the café and bid each other a final farewell as their respective town cars waited by the curb. “I really missed you, Blair.”

“I really missed you, too, Serena.” They hugged and held each other for quite a long time, almost as if they thought this might be their last hug ever. Serena didn’t realize, but Blair was becoming emotional. She stopped her tears before they could stream down her face and ruin her mascara. “Thank you for everything. Maybe if I cared for Los Angeles, I’d move out there to be with you.” Serena laughed at Blair’s joke, but she actually took it to heart. She knew that she was trying to lighten the mood, but that she was also being serious. 

They shared one final look before they got into the cars, Blair headed to the penthouse on 5th and Serena headed for Teterboro. Since she finally had some downtime, she checked her phone to see that she had a missed call from Chuck with an accompanying voicemail. She put her phone up to her ear and listened. _Serena, please come by The Empire before you head to Teterboro, it’s important. I’ll be at the bar. I only need a few minutes of your time, I promise._

Serena thought about whether or not she should blow Chuck off or risk missing her flight. “Can you quickly take me to The Empire Hotel?” _If she missed her flight, she would just ask to take the private jet home as payback, she supposed._

The car was barely stopped before Serena jumped out and speed walked to the bar. She recognized Chuck’s back and approached him. She was surprised to see him drinking sparkling water rather than scotch, then she remembered that he was sober. “Chuck, what is so important?” she asked as she sat down next to him. 

“She’s leaving.”

“What?” Serena had no idea who he was talking about. “Marceline?” 

“No, Blair. She’s leaving New York.” A small part of Serena was disappointed that Chuck and Marceline hadn't broken up. 

“Yeah?” She was confused as to why Chuck was discussing Blair with her considering they hadn’t spoken about her together in years. “I just left breakfast with her. She’s moving to Paris to take over her mother’s company.”

“She’s taking over Waldorf Designs?” Serena nodded her head. “Can’t she run it from New York?”

“Yes, but she wants to leave New York. She said there’s nothing keeping her here.”

“She told me the same thing yesterday.” Chuck thought for a moment before he lifted his arms to hold Serena’s shoulders. “ _You need to move back to New York._ ”

“What? Chuck, do you really think you should be saying this to me right now, especially considering how upset Marceline was yesterday?”

Chuck ignored the latter half of Serena's response. “Don’t go back to Los Angeles.”

“Chuck, you’re being crazy. I can’t just abandon my life in Los Angeles.”

“Yes, you can. We all know you can. You could live anywhere in the world. _Choose to live here.”_

Serena stared at him for a moment. “ _Why?”_

He thought about whether or not he wanted to tell Serena the truth. Rather than find himself in another situation similar to yesterday’s (which was caused by his lying), he ultimately decided to tell the truth. _“Because if you come back, she won’t leave. And I don’t think I would be able to bear it if she left again”_

“Chuck, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. If she wanted to stay, she would. I can’t change anything.” Serena didn’t wait for Chuck’s response before she left the bar. She sat back down in the town car and thought about how she just lied to Chuck. They both knew Serena had the power to make Blair stay, that’s why Chuck asked her to in the first place. _Chuck Bass has a nasty habit of never being wrong when it comes to Blair Waldorf._

She thought about the negatives of moving back to New York as she rode to the airport. She’d have to go through the hassle of moving again, she might find herself in the middle of drama just like yesterday’s brunch. Then she considered the positives. She’d be close to her friends and family, booking would most likely prove to be easier in New York than in Los Angeles, and maybe, _just maybe,_ her moving back would mean she would be to help two lost loves find their way back to one another.


	17. She's Moving to Paris

Chuck walked into Lily’s apartment to find her sitting on the couch. “Oh, Charles, what a lovely surprise.” She smiled and gestured for him to sit down next to her. “What is the occasion?”

“Does there always have to be an occasion for me to come over, Lily?” Chuck kidded with a smile. Lily playfully slapped his right shoulder before getting serious again. 

“Are you alright, Charles?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he responded quickly. _He responded way too quickly, actually._

Lily noticed he was avoiding eye contact with her. “I wasn’t planning on Blair being at Thanksgiving dinner or brunch on Saturday.”

“I know.”

She crossed one leg over the other and rested her head on her hand. “I can imagine how _difficult_ it might have been for you to see her.” Chuck didn’t respond. Instead, he bounced his right leg up and down and stared at the floor. “You know you can always tell me anything, Charles.”

He thought for a moment before he decided to spill his guts. “For seven years, I have been fine. I have been sober, I took some time to focus on work, and I found someone else that really loves me-”

“Which I am _more_ than proud of.”

“Thank you, Lily.” Chuck quickly flashed her a smile before he continued. “And I’m getting ready to propose to this wonderful girl and finally take that next step in my life and-”

“And Blair comes back and derails everything,” Lily finished. 

“Exactly.”

She took a breath before she continued to ask Chuck more questions. “Do you still love her?”

He was a bit taken aback by this question, for he never thought Lily would be bold enough to actually ask it. His hesitation answered the question better than any verbal response could have. “I don’t know. I don’t _think_ so.” Lily reached out and began to pat Chuck’s arm. “But it doesn’t matter anyway?”

“Why?” She was confused, for it seemed as if Chuck was referring to information that she was not keen on. 

“She’s moving to Paris. She’s taking over Waldorf Designs, Eleanor is finally retiring.”

“Oh, that is _wonderful_!”

“Yes, it’s wonderful _for her…_ ” he trailed off. Lily could tell that, although Chuck was happy for his ex-girlfriend, he was also disappointed in the fact that she was leaving his life so quickly again. “I thought that if Serena never moved to Los Angeles and stayed in New York, then Blair would stay, too.”

“But it seems that our two girls have moved on from Manhattan,” Lily added. She was just as upset as Chuck about this, for she missed her daughter dearly and longed to be closer to her. “Serena called me last night when she got in.”

“I tried to get her to stay, but I don’t think there is anything that could get her to leave California.” They sat for a moment in silence before Chuck began to speak again. “I thought my life for the past seven years was _good,_ and then she comes back and I somehow feel _even better_ , but also awful at the same time. I don’t know how to describe it.”

Lily was so glad that Chuck was being so open with her, so she took extra thought into her responses to him to make sure he didn’t shut back down prematurely. “I know that Blair didn’t necessarily come back for you, but _she did come back_. Don’t you think it’s a possibility that she feels the same way? Perhaps she was disappointed or hurt to see that you’re committed to someone else and finally decided to let New York go for good.”

“I spoke with her on Saturday and she made it clear that things were done between us. Everything stung all over again, like we had just broken up even though I haven’t been with her in so long.”

“How does Marceline make you feel?”

He thought for a moment. “She makes me feel… content. I’m happy when I’m with her, I love her presence. She makes me laugh, we’ve never gotten into a fight, except for a few days ago, but we’re fine now.”

“Does she have any clue about what you’ve been feeling these past few days?” Chuck shook his head. “Do you love her?”

“I think I do. I was more sure that I did prior to Thanksgiving. Today, I’m confused. I don’t really know how to feel about everything and everyone right now.”

“Do you want to know what I think?” Chuck nodded. Although he never really cared for people telling him how he felt, this time he was all ears. “Well, I think that this confusion is only temporary. You’re first love has resurfaced after a very long time, it’s normal for those old feelings to kick up again. And like you said, she’s leaving. I think that, once she is gone again, things will go back to how they were. You’ll be more sure about your relationship with Marceline in no time. And I’m not only saying this because I would love to help plan a wedding within the year,” she said with a smile. 

Chuck thanked his adoptive mother for her kind words and guidance and left the apartment. By the time he got back to The Empire, he was certain he wasn’t confused anymore. He knew who he loved and who he didn’t, but it seemed that the girl he loved didn’t love him and the girl he didn’t love loved him too much. He had more decisions to make: should he be the good guy and stay with Marceline, should he try and lock down the love of his life for good, or should he move on from both of them and live his life?


	18. Blair Always Brought Out Chuck's Soft Side

It’s been four days since Serena landed in Los Angeles and Blair and her mother were sitting with each other’s company in the penthouse on Fifth Avenue discussing Blair’s upcoming departure from New York to Paris and the subsequent fresh start of her new life. Surprisingly, news of the divorce has yet to be released, making Blair more on edge than ever. Somehow, news of Blair’s or Serena’s return to New York City failed to make its way through the high society social grapevine, which both irked and relieved Blair. She knew that her presence in the city was best kept quiet at the moment, but she could not help but feel unimportant for the time being. 

“In all honesty, dear,” Eleanor said. Blair perked up and began to listen to her mother, for she had no idea where she was going with this. “I was hoping you’d relocate the atelier back to New York.”

Blair sighed before she sipped from her glass of water. “As much as I missed it here, I think my time in Manhattan is over. Besides, Serena is back in Los Angeles, you and Daddy are in France. Moving to Paris should be… good for me.”

Eleanor raised her eyebrows as Blair spoke, signaling to her daughter that she did not necessarily think moving to Paris would be the best idea. “Everyone is only a plane ride away, my dear.” Blair didn’t respond, but instead she sat and thought about what her mother was suggesting. Suddenly, Eleanor changed the direction of the conversation. “Lily told me that Charles has been with the same girl for quite a while now. She heard from Nathaniel that he was planning on proposing to her. Might that be another reason for you not wanting to stay here?”

“Chuck’s relationship status is not of my concern,” Blair said with absolutely no emotion in her face. It was almost frightening how stoic she was acting. “If, by some act of God, Serena decides to move back to the Upper East Side before I leave for Paris for good , then I’ll stay, but as of right now, _I have no intention of ever living in New York ever again._ And considering she’s been back in California for almost a week, I find it very unlikely she has intentions of leaving for good.”

Eleanor stood up and announced she was heading up to bed. “I suggest you get some rest too, Blair. Since you’re seemingly dead set on moving to Paris, you’ll need to get a good night’s sleep so that you’ll have plenty of energy for when Dorota comes to help us pack your things _again._ Although our flight is booked for Saturday, I just want you to know it’s not too late to change your mind.” She kissed her daughter on the top of her head and made her way up the spiral staircase.

Blair cozied up to the fire and decided that, since she probably wouldn’t be falling asleep anytime soon, she might as well put on a movie to entertain her for the time being. _The Sound of Music_ seemed as good as any, for Julie Andrews never failed to put a smile on Blair’s face. She was so engrossed in the film playing in front of her that she didn’t even hear the elevator open. 

“Ah, _The Sound of Music_ ,” a familiar voice said, making Blair jump. “Oh, calm down, I don’t think I’m _that_ scary.”

“Serena?!” Blair paused the movie and squinted her eyes at the woman standing in front of her, plenty of luggage sitting right behind her. “What are you doing here?”

Serena sat down next to Blair and began to explain. “I was on my way back to L.A. on the plane and I realized that I wasn’t going home, but rather I was leaving it.”

“What?”

“Blair, I’ve spent the last four days running around like crazy, taking calls, making arrangements, _packing…”_

“What are you saying?” Blair knew _exactly_ what Serena was about to tell her, but she needed her best friend to _actually say it._

“I’m moving back to Manhattan.”

“You’re moving back to Manhattan.”

“ _I’m moving back to Manhattan.”_ Blair didn’t quite know what to say. Serena was more than disappointed with her friend’s lack of enthusiasm, causing a frown to form on her tan face. “Blair, if I’m being honest, I was expecting you to be a little bit more excited.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Blair leaned forward and grabbed Serena’s hands and held them. “I _am_ excited for you, Serena.”

“For me? Blair, you can stay in New York now.”

Although Blair had earlier told her mother that she would stay in New York if Serena moved back, she only said that because she thought the possibility of that actually happening was somewhere around zero percent. “Serena, I’m not going to change my plans on a whim just because you decided to move back home. You should live where you want to live, and I should live where I want to live. Which is Paris.”

“We _both_ know that you want to stay here, Blair.” Blair’s lack of response told Serena everything she needed to know. 

“Well, you’re welcome to live here for as long as it takes for you to move into a new place. You’ll have one full day with me before I leave this weekend.”

“Blair, don’t you see how amazing this could be? It could be just like our year at Columbia when we lived here together!”

“We were practically children back then, Serena. We’re inching closer and closer to thirty every single day, I don’t view living with my childhood best friend as _fun._ ” She got up to take her dishes to the kitchen and escape the conversation, but Serena followed her. 

“Why are you saying things you don’t mean?” Blair didn’t say anything as she tidied up the kitchen. “There is nothing stopping you from staying. _I know you, Blair._ You want to stay on the Upper East Side, you just need a little push. Well, consider me moving back here _your push_.”

Blair spoke to the wall, her back turned to Serena. “ _I don’t need anyone to push me to do anything, thank you very much.”_ She shuffled out of the kitchen and began to make her way up to her bedroom. “You know the way to the guest room. _Goodnight, Serena.”_

Serena huffed and stood in the foyer for a moment. Before she headed up the stairs, she decided to try and call Chuck despite it being so late.

“You were wrong,” Serena said before Chuck could even say anything. 

“What are you talking about, Serena?”

She let out a sigh before she continued. “About Blair. You were wrong.”

Chuck took a moment to respond. Serena figured he was near Marceline and had to move somewhere else so that she would not hear him talking about Blair. “About what, exactly?”

“About how she would stay if I moved back. Well, I moved back and she’s still going to Paris.”

“You’re moving back?” 

“Yes, Chuck, _because of what you said to me._ I made the decision to move back before I even got to the airport, but I still had to go back out there to make arrangements. Now I feel like I’ve wasted my time and energy.”

“You’ll just have to talk to her, she’ll come around. She’s just stubborn.” Chuck’s voice sounded desperate, something Serena had not heard in a while. _Blair always brought out Chuck’s soft side._

“She’s leaving for good on Saturday and I really do not think it’s a good idea for me to continue to press her buttons. She’s been through so much this past week, I don’t think it’s fair to keep bugging her to try and coerce her into doing something she decided she _doesn't want to do.”_ Chuck knew that Serena was right, so he didn’t say anything. “And why are you concerned with where she lives, anyway? Things are over between the two of you, and until last week, you were in a very happy relationship with a girl that loves you _very much._ I think it’s time you let this whole thing with Blair go once and for all and commit to Marceline for good. You know what to do,” Serena said, hanging up before Chuck could respond, and heading up to bed disappointed that she couldn’t get her best friend to stay. 

_One prodigal socialite returned, but now she’s leaving again just when the second one decided to follow suit. Will these two ever find themselves living on the same continent again?_


	19. Im Not in the Mood

Chuck was in the middle of deep thought in the shower when he suddenly realized he was no longer alone. “Marcie, what are you doing in here?”

She laughed as she took a few steps toward him, her red hair turning dark as the water washed over her. “I’m joining you in the shower, silly.” Chuck rolled his eyes, immediately got out, and wrapped a towel around his waist. Marceline quickly shut the water off and slipped a fluffy robe over her body. “Is something wrong? You’re usually happy when we shower together,” she said with a frown on her face.

He let out a sigh as he began to dry the rest of his body off. “I’m just not in the mood right now.”

Marceline pouted at this response and mumbled, “You haven’t been in the mood for over a week.” She stared at him as he began to get himself ready for the day. Thinking that he just needed a bit of encouragement, she approached him from behind and began to massage his shoulders, slowly working her way down his back, eventually moving her hands forward just below his abdomen. She thought he was enjoying her attempt to give him pleasure, only to have him suddenly bat her hands away from him. 

“I said I’m not in the mood,” he grumbled. 

“Fine,” she said with an annoyed tone. “I’m getting back in the shower, don’t even _think_ about changing your mind and joining me.” She turned the water back on, dropped her robe, and began to shampoo her hair. She was fully expecting him to actually change his mind and hop back in the shower, to which she was ready to happily accept despite her last words to her, but was disappointed when she realized he would not, in fact, be taking a second shower for the day. 

She finished up her shower, did a quick makeup look that made her look as fresh and glowy as ever, and decided to let her long, straight hair air dry. She was all dressed and ready for the day when she walked out into the main part of the penthouse only to find Chuck on his way out. 

“I’m meeting Nate in Central Park to walk Otis and then we’re having lunch,” he said as he walked to the elevator. 

“Okay, I’ll see you tonight. Have a good day, I love you.” Marceline stood in front of the elevator and blew her boyfriend a kiss, to which he only hung his head in response. “I don’t know what the fuck has gotten into him…”

\---

“Hey, Chuck,” Nate said with his golden retriever, Otis, in tow. 

“Nathaniel. Otis!” Chuck bent down and gave the well-behaved dog a quick scratch, to which he responded with a quick lick on the hand. He seemed to be in a much happier mood than previously in the bathroom with Marceline. “You know, you and Otis almost make me want to get a dog myself.”

“Chuck Bass with a _dog?_ That’s not something you see every day.” The two best friends commenced their walk and began to chat. 

“Hey, anything is possible.”

“That is true,” Nate admitted. “I mean, who would have thought you would have met and married _the one_ before you’re even thirty?” Chuck flashed a fake smile to the ground as he listened to Nate. He agreed with Nate that he had met _the one_. In fact, he’s known her practically his entire life; however, it didn’t seem he would be marrying her. Instead, he’d most likely be married to the next best thing by the same time next year. “Do you know when you’re going to propose?”

“Uh, I’m not sure.” Chuck looked back at the ground and kicked a pebble out of his way, his hands in his pockets. “I still need to pick out the ring.”

“Dude, you still haven’t gotten the ring?” Nate was astonished at this news. He was sure that his best friend had gone out earlier in the week and finally picked one out. “Let’s go after lunch, come on, it’ll be fun. I can call Karolina and see if she can spare an hour or two with us.” Chuck was about to say something, but he couldn’t even get his objection in before Nate began stepping away to dial his fiancé. He came back over to Chuck a few moments later and said, “Well, Karolina is tied up with school stuff at the moment, but she suggested we call Serena since she’s back in town. I told her that’s a great idea. What do you think?”

“Uh, sure, whatever.” _Yeah, Serena was back in town, but someone else is leaving tomorrow morning._

“Great, why don’t you call her while I take Otis to do his business?” Nate formed what he said as a sentence, but it was more of an order. He gave Chuck a thumbs up before he walked up to the dog park. 

Chuck stood still for a moment. He debated on making up some excuse, like he was sick or had to go urgently take care of some business at the hotel, but he decided that, if he was ever going to get over Blair, he needed to move on with his life. He was already planning on proposing to Marceline before Thanksgiving, and since Blair was leaving, he didn’t see the harm in going through with it. _He just needs a bit of a shove, that’s all._

“Hey,” Chuck started after Serena answered after a few rings. “Are you busy today?”

Serena hesitated. “Yes? What’s up?”

Chuck sighed before he said, “Do you want to join Nate and I for lunch? We’re going to go pick out an engagement ring for Marcie after and I could really…use another woman’s opinion.” There was such a lack of excitement and emotion in his voice that Serena would not have been surprised to find out he was being forced to say this against his will. 

“Sure,” she replied when she finally realized what he was asking her. She figured that, if Chuck and Blair aren’t going to be together, she might as well encourage him to be with her other best friend once and for all. 

“Great. We’re actually heading over to Jean-Georges in about twenty minutes.”

“I’ll see you there,” Serena said before hanging up. 

Nate and Otis crept up behind Chuck and surprised him, making him slightly jump. “Is Serena coming?”

“Yeah, she’s meeting us there in, like, half an hour.” 

“Awesome!” Nate slapped Chuck on the back. “Pretty soon you and I are both going to be engaged men, isn’t it amazing?”

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Chuck mumbled in response. _Yeah, I guess it is amazing, if you consider getting engaged to your second choice amazing, that is._

\---

Nate saw Serena approaching the table, a smile spread wide across her face and pieces of blonde hair falling out of her perfectly messy ponytail. “I can’t believe you’re moving back to the U.E.S.!” he exclaimed as they hugged. “Chuck told me on the phone this morning, this is great!” Chuck was still sitting in his seat when Serena and Nate detached. No one really expected him to greet her the same way Nate did, anyway. 

“Yeah, I thought it was about time to come back home. I ran away for long enough,” she said with a laugh. “And what better way to commemorate my homecoming than a lunch with my boys?”

“Oh, it’s going to be great looking for an engagement ring. I had so much fun when I went to find one for Kar.” Nate shifted his attention to Chuck. “Trust me, when you find the one, you’ll know. You’ll feel it.” 

Chuck looked to Serena, who had her eyebrows raised and her lips folded inward. “I hope so,” he said. He stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. “I’m going to wash up, I’ll be back.”

As soon as Chuck was out of ear shot, Nate leaned in to Serena and asked, “Is he doing okay?”

“What? Why wouldn’t he be?” Serena said with confusion. 

Nate looked behind him to make sure that Chuck had made it to the restroom. “You know, with Blair resurfacing and everything, I figured he’s been having a bit of a tough time. I’ve tried talking to him about it, but it seems like he’s just shoving all of his feelings aside.”

“Well, maybe he just _doesn’t have any more feelings left_ for Blair,” Serena suggested. She knew that wasn’t exactly true, but she wanted to throw Nate off so that Chuck could properly move on for good. “She’s leaving for Paris tomorrow, anyway. Chuck can go back to living his life once she’s gone. We all can.”

“Yeah, that really sucks.” Nate rested his head on his hand. “You know, Karolina seemed to really like Blair.”

“I think it’s best that Blair not get involved with Karolina or Marceline,’ Serena said after taking a sip of water. 

Nate looked away from Serena and stared at the wall as he said, “Don’t say anything, but part of me thought that something was going to happen between Chuck and Blair.”

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think that, too.”

“I mean, _he loved her_ _so fucking much_ , it was almost scary,” but what he actually wanted to say was, “I mean, _he loves her so fucking much,_ it’s almost scary,” but he refrained. 

“Yeah, like I can’t even imagine loving someone that much,” Serena admitted. In that moment, Nate looked over at her and realized that _he_ could imagine loving someone as much as Chuck loves Blair, and she was sitting right in front of him. Chuck sat back down at his place at the table and snapped Nate out of whatever trance Serena had him in. _What the fuck, Nate? He’s happily engaged, for God’s sake. Well, at least he thought he was happy._

Much to Nate's luck, Serena didn’t take notice of how he was looking at her just moments before. The two of them put any talk of Blair away for the rest of the afternoon and enjoyed their lunch with Chuck. After their meal was finished, they made their way to multiple jewelers, including Tiffany’s and Cartier, in search of the perfect engagement ring for Marceline, but none of them stood out to Chuck. 

“I never thought I would find one, Chuck, but I did, and when I least expected it,” Nate encouraged. “You’ll find it, I know you will.” He had no idea that the reason Chuck couldn’t find the ring of Marceline’s dreams was because _he didn’t really want to marry her,_ but Serena did. Thankfully for Chuck, she decided to keep quiet. 

It was late by the time the trio parted ways, for the sun had set and the city lit up the sky. Nate headed back to his apartment, Serena trotted off to visit her mother, and Chuck was making his way back to The Empire when he decided to make a quick stop somewhere before calling it a night. 

\--- 

Blair had received a call that someone was coming up the elevator to the penthouse, so she made her way down the stairs. She was almost in the foyer when the elevator dinged and a man with dark hair in a suit stepped in. When she realized who it was, her heart skipped a beat. “Chuck, what are you doing here?” She was more confused than annoyed. Actually, she wasn’t annoyed at all. 

“I just wanted to say congratulations,” he admitted. They both stood like statues, neither of them relaxed, their bodies as stiff as boards. 

Blair softened her demeanor. “Oh, well, thank you.” She could tell he was being sincere. 

“And good-” Fearing his voice would crack, Chuck stopped and cleared his throat. “And goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” Blair furrowed her eyebrows and tilted her head as she dipped it forward. 

“Serena told me you’re leaving for Paris tomorrow.” 

“Oh,” Blair said. It was like she had completely forgotten she was moving continents tomorrow morning. They stood for a moment and stared at each other. They each studied the other and mentally pointed out all of the things that they missed about each other, pointed out all of the things that they loved about the other, inside and out. _If only they could read each other’s fucking minds!_

Chuck lifted his hand and closed his eyes for a second. “I shouldn’t be here, I’m sorry.” He turned and began to walk back toward the elevator. Blair was still frozen in place, just standing there and contemplating every single decision she has made in her entire life. “I just wanted to see you one last time.” 

Just as Chuck pressed the button to summon the elevator to the penthouse, Blair broke her silence and said, “I’m not going.” 

Chuck didn’t even look up from in front of him. “ _You’re not_?” 

Blair hadn’t made this decision late the night before or earlier that morning. Rather, she made that decision right then and there with Chuck Bass standing in front of her. After all, her mother did say it wasn’t too late to change her mind. Although she thought she was certain she was leaving, she realized that she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Chuck again, even if he’s practically engaged to that model with impeccable bone structure and legs for days. 

“No,” Blair started as she took a few steps closer to him. “I haven’t told Serena yet. I didn't have the chance to.”

“Oh.” He finally broke his gaze with the wall and looked to his love, two pairs of brown eyes staring into each other, staring into each other’s souls. 

“I hope that’s okay, me sticking around.”

“Of course it is,” he said quickly. He didn’t want to risk saying something wrong and her deciding to leave again. 

“I just realized that… I belong here. And I don’t want to leave it behind again.” _Didn’t want to leave Chuck behind again, more like._

“I understand,” he replied. “I know how much this city means to you.” He knew _everything_ about her. Of course, she could turn around and say the same thing about him. 

“I guess I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, I’ll _see you around_.” He stepped into the waiting elevator, hit the button that corresponded to the lobby, and cracked his first genuine smile all day at the thought of Blair Waldorf staying in Manhattan. Little did he know, she was staying for him. 

_Looks like both of New York’s prodigal socialites have returned. Let’s see how long it takes to rock the boat even more so than they already have this week._


	20. These Newbies Don't Stand a Chance Against Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a bit...weird? I just needed to get this shift in the timeline out of the way!

Weeks have come and gone, Christmas and New Years have passed, and Serena and Blair have finally settled back into the Upper East Side. It was just like old times, except now the girls were much closer to thirty than sixteen. Regardless, at this moment in time, they only needed each other, which was more than enough. Besides, Serena was reunited with her dear mother and Blair joined forces again with her partner in crime for more than half of her life, Dorota. 

The Grimaldis released a statement regarding the divorce a few days after Blair’s conversation with Chuck in her foyer, fabricating the entire story and timeline to shield the true one, the one that would damage their credibility. Much to their dismay, the public sympathized with the ex-princess more than the royal family. She never realized how much she was adored in Monaco, and that adoration did not wane across the Atlantic, for it followed her all the way to Manhattan. Because of the sympathy, things could not have been going better for her. Initially worried that the public’s interest in her would quickly fade and she would go back to living the ordinary life of a New York socialite, she was pleasantly surprised to find that she was more popular than ever, even more popular than she was when news of her engagement to the prince was released nearly eight years earlier. 

Despite the adoration, she became the vicious paparazzi’s number one target, for they camped outside of the penthouse and ambushed her whenever she made an appearance. They never stood a chance at hearing a peep from her about the divorce or any other potential romantic relationships she may engage in. All they were going to get out of her was a shameless plug about Waldorf Designs and

a fabulous photograph to sell for an insane amount of money to a tabloid (it was for this exact reason Blair constantly made sure to have her hair and makeup done, as well as don a killer outfit, even if she was just stepping out for a few moments to get into her waiting town car). 

They began to follow her wherever she went, whether that be to the atelier or Central Park, but she loved the attention. To her, there was nothing better than having her picture taken, there was nothing better than being talked about. Now that she was at the head of her mother’s company, she was going to take any press she could get. _Any press is good press, perhaps!_

She was portrayed as a strong, powerful, and creative business woman, for people were so eager to get a hold of any piece from Waldorf Designs that they sold out of nearly everything they had to offer. Eleanor would never admit this to Blair, but she was worried that her daughter was going to crack and step down before she had the chance to truly set up, but she was ecstatic to realize that Blair was stronger and more successful than ever. _Maybe she shouldn’t have doubted her daughter in the first place!_

Since moving back to New York City and, subsequently, Blair’s penthouse on Fifth Avenue, Serena practically went everywhere with Blair. This benefited both of their careers, for a picture of Serena with the ex-princess was highly sought after, thus putting them both on the city’s radar, at least for the time being. 

Although Dorota was previously working for Penelope, she did not hesitate to return to Blair’s side. Actually, Blair wasn’t even done asking her by the time Dorota accepted. She was more than delighted to have Blair back where she belonged, for she missed her dearly. Frankly, working for Penelope was easier, but nowhere near as rewarding as working with Blair Waldorf, especially since Dorota practically raised her. 

Blair put her royal life so far behind her that she could barely remember it. She was fine with blocking it out of her memory. Although she wasn’t exactly totally miserable or depressed, she now felt more alive than ever. She wasn’t irked at all at the images of Louis and Estee’s (shotgun) wedding, or even Estee’s growing (bastard) baby bump. The only thing that truly irked her was living on the Upper West Side in the Empire Hotel. 

Blair had only seen Serena and her family, Dorota, and her own family since deciding to stay in New York, for Nate and Chuck and their respective girlfriends decided to head elsewhere for the holidays. It was now the second week in January and everyone had trickled back to their apartments, the buzz from the Christmas season finally wearing off. 

Blair was happy to see that she was more popular than ever, but that did not mean she was not subject to baseless gossip. In order to stir things up, the tabloids ran false stories about her past relationships with Chuck and Nate, which suggested that maybe she left the prince for one of her ex flames or was having an affair with either (or both!) of them despite the fact that they were both in seemingly committed relationships. No one ever actually took the bait, though. _At least, Blair never thought anyone did._

Although things have been coming relatively easy to Blair for the past few weeks, she was ready to face her first true challenge: the release of her first collection. Thankfully, she had two people by her side at practically all times of the day: Serena van der Woodsen and Dorota Kishlovsky. 

Serena and Blair were sitting in the atelier discussing her upcoming collection when a lightbulb went off over the new mogul’s head. “You know, speaking of all of this tabloid fodder, how about I capitalize off of it?”

“You mean more than you already are?” Serena didn’t look up when she responded, for she was busy flipping through the first magazine she saw sitting on the coffee table. 

“How do you think Marceline and Karolina would feel modeling for me?”

This grabbed Serena’s attention. She hadn’t heard Blair mention either of their names in weeks. She assumed Blair was trying to put Chuck completely behind her, but this suggestion was the complete opposite of that notion. Blair hadn’t even spoken to Chuck since the night she told him she was staying in New York, but there was a beautiful bouquet of peonies that arrived at the atelier a few days later with an anonymous note congratulating Blair on her recent promotion. _Who else would have sent them? It sounded like something he would do, and the way the note was worded screamed “Chuck Bass,” he just must have wanted to keep the nice gesture between the two of them._ “Are you sure about that?” she questioned as she closed the magazine and left it on her lap. 

“And you, too, of course. If the media is going to continue to spread gossip about us, we might as well put that attention to use.” Serena raised her eyebrows as she waited for Blair to continue. “Think about it. You’re possibly the most sought after it girl in the history of New York, Marceline is a supermodel, and Karolina is _just interesting enough_ to make people want to know who she is. She’s engaged to a van der Bilt, for God’s sake. And with all of that combined, Waldorf Designs’ popularity would absolutely skyrocket. It’s a win-win-win-win situation,” she laughed. 

Although Serena hesitated in responding, she couldn’t help but admit to herself that Blair was sound in her logic. “Well, why don’t we ask them out to lunch and discuss it then?”

“I like what you're thinking, S!” Blair shifted her attention over to her other constant companion. “Shoo, you know what to do.” Dorota smiled and shuffled away to do as Blair pleased. 

None of them said anything, especially Serena who was trying to be as supportive of Blair as ever, but the three of them all knew that underneath Blair’s business strategy was a scheme. _And if anyone knows anything about Blair Waldorf, they’ll know that these newbies don’t stand a chance against her._


	21. Spit It Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so short, but I didn't have time to write an entire chapter today!

Serena, Blair, Marceline, and Karolina all gathered at Kellari a few days after Blair suggested she get the two newcomers to model for her first collection. Marceline was initially hesitant to accept the invitation for lunch, but decided not to tell Chuck about her plans and go anyway. _It couldn’t hurt just to see what Blair wanted to discuss, anyway._

“So, as the two of you know, I am now the head of Waldorf Designs,” Blair said, her eyes shifting between Chuck’s girlfriend and Nate’s girlfriend. When she looked to Karolina for a moment, Marceline rolled her eyes. Blair didn’t notice, but Serena did, however she kept quiet for the time being and decided to debate whether or not she should tell her childhood best friend about it in private. “And I am currently working on my first collection, and…” her voice trailed off. The girls leaned, for now they were interested in what Blair was going to say next. 

“Come on, Blair, spit it out,” Serena said as she sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. 

“And I was wondering if either or both of you would be interested in modeling for me!”

Marceline was about to decline, but Karolina broke in before her and accepted the offer for both of them. “Of course we would! I don’t know how much I’ll be able to bring to the table, but I’m sure Marcie can show me the ropes and a few tricks, seeing as she is a seasoned professional.” At this point, it would have been rude for Marceline to say no. 

“Yes, _Marcie_ sure is a _seasoned professional_ ,” Blair painfully said. Serena had to hide her chuckle at how Blair spoke, for she did not want to tip the other two girls off that Blair was being insincere. 

Marceline flashed Blair a fake smile and gladly accepted the offer. _A job is a job, but what will Chuck think?_


	22. Don't Do Anything You'll Regret, Please

“So,” Marceline started as she walked out of the elevator and into the penthouse. Chuck was sitting on the couch as he texted someone, practically unaware that he was no longer alone. She plopped down next to him and waited for him to ask where she was, but got annoyed when he didn’t. “Aren’t you going to ask me where I was?” Chuck mumbled something incoherent as he continued to type on his phone. “I just got back from lunch with Serena and Karolina.” He still wasn’t taking the bait, so she stood up and began to walk to the kitchen. She opened the fridge door and shouted, “oh, and Blair!”

Chuck looked up from his phone and cocked his head in confusion, like a puppy dog hearing a strange noise. He tucked his phone in his pocket and casually made his way to the kitchen. “Sorry, I had to send something to my lawyer.” Marceline stood at the counter and drank a glass of water. Her back was facing her boyfriend, which he was thankful for since he didn’t really want her to see his face whenever they spoke about Blair. He thought he was a decent liar, but sometimes he couldn’t control his facial expressions, especially when it came to the one he loved the most. “So, uh, lunch with Blair, huh?” Chuck scratched his head as his anxieties got the best of him. 

“Oh, yeah, it was no big deal,” Marceline said as she turned around to face Chuck. Her long hair rippled off of her right shoulder like a beautiful, red waterfall. “She asked me to model for her, actually?”

This was the last thing Chuck was expecting her to say. He had to physically stop his mouth from dropping in shock so as not to concern his girlfriend. Ever since Thanksgiving, Blair Waldorf has been a bit of a touchy subject. “She did?” 

“And Karolina.”

Chuck waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t, much to his annoyance. “And what did you say?” He was praying she was going to say she respectfully declined. 

“Of course, I immediately said _yes_ ,” she said, with emphasis on the final word. Chuck didn’t know this, but Marceline was lying. She actually didn’t want to do it at all, but Karolina accepted on behalf of the both of them. _A little white lie like this one can’t do any harm, anyway. It’s like not Marceline has been lying to Chuck for, what, over two years at this point?_ “I think this is going to be _fun._ I know you’re not particularly fond of me cozying up to Blair, but if she’s going to be staying in Manhattan, we’re bound to run into each other. Come on, Chuck, she’s your sister’s best friend. We might as well keep things… civil,” she said with the fakest smile ever flashed. 

Although Marceline modeling with Blair deeply concerned Chuck, he decided to lie and make her feel as if he was totally fine with the idea. “This should be good for the company, good for you.”

“A job’s a job.” 

“Yeah, a job’s a job.” They stood in the kitchen, a moment of silence between them, before Chuck broke it and left the apartment in a rush. “You actually caught me at a bad time, I have to go.” _Liar._

“Oh.” Marceline’s posture stiffened. _Why has Chuck been so ambiguous about his whereabouts for the past couple of months?_

“I’ll see you later.” Chuck stepped forward, kissed Marceline on the cheek, and was gone from her sight in a second. 

“I love you!” she said. She waited for a response, but sulked when she didn’t get one. Perhaps, he didn’t hear her. Perhaps, he was pulling away from her. 

After being back for only a week or two from holiday, Marceline was still upset at the fact that she came back Chuck’s girlfriend and not his fiancé. She was sure he was going to pop the question sometime in December and was thoroughly disappointed when she returned to New York City with a bare ring finger. She figured that, after the Blair debacle at brunch, Chuck would want to show he was truly committed to her. She was disappointed that he didn’t, but decided that he just needed a bit of time. It’s not like they’re in a rush, for Chuck isn’t even thirty and she’s barely twenty-six. 

\--- 

“Who is here, Dorota?” Blair questioned as she made her descent down the staircase. She looked at Dorota and decided that she was acting weird. “Dorota, what is going on?”

“Miss Blair, Mr. Chuck is here to speak with you,” Dorota said with raised eyebrows.

Blair noticed that Dorota couldn’t contain herself, so she decided to send her away for the time being. “Go polish silver or something, Dorota.” The maid scurried off to do as Blair said, but she tried to position herself so that she could hear whatever the ex-lovers were talking about. 

Since Blair left for Monaco and Dorota worked for Penelope, she fell out of the social circle. Although Vanya was still the van der Woodsen’s doorman, she was not as involved with everyone’s lives as she used to be. She did not realize how much she missed it until she was back in the saddle. When she and Blair first reconnected, Dorota pounded Blair with questions about Chuck. Although that annoyed Blair, she freely spoke with Dorota about her confusing feelings but emphasized that she did not divorce Louis and return to New York with the hope of reconciling with her ex-boyfriend. This broke Dorota’s heart, for she truly wished the two of them would just try and work things out once and for all (you didn’t have to know them to know that they still loved each other, it was so obvious, or at least Dorota thought it was obvious!). When she realized that Blair’s visitor was Chuck, she became giddy, for this was the most exciting thing to happen to her in years. 

Blair made her way down the rest of the staircase and stood in front of Chuck. He hadn’t taken his coat or gloves off, letting Blair know he wouldn’t be staying very long. _Why would he stay long, anyway?_ Suddenly, becoming uncomfortable, Blair crossed her arms in front of her chest and sighed. “What brings you to the Upper East Side?”

Chuck couldn’t help but let out a slight laugh. “Come on, you know why I’m here.”

Blair decided to play dumb. “Actually, no I don’t,” she said, lifting her eyes as if she was thinking hard.

“You really think I would hear about you asking Marceline to model for you and _not_ have a problem with it?”

“I didn’t ask just her! Karolina and Serena are participating, too,” she said defensively. “And isn’t modeling supposed to be what a model does, anyway? I’m just booking her, that’s all. There is no harm in that.” She cocked her head to the side and smiled at Chuck. 

He bit his lip as he looked away from to the floor at his feet. “If I know anything about Blair Waldorf, I know she’s planning a scheme. I have a new girlfriend, so history is going to repeat itself. It always does.”

Blair stood up straight and dropped her arms to her side, fists clenched, nails digging into her palms. “I _told_ you, I’m _different_ now.” _Sure, keep telling yourself that, Blair._ “I’m just conducting my business. I need to be professional, so I _will be._ ” 

“I’m warning you, Blair. Don’t do anything you’ll regret, please.” 

“When it comes to talking about regretful actions, I think you need to go look in the mirror and stop wasting your time with me,” she said with a huff. She turned away to leave him, but decided she needed to get one last jab in. “If you’re _that_ worried about the state of your relationship, I suggest you put a ring on it. It’s not like you haven’t tried before.”

Chuck shook his head at Blair’s final statement. He acted like he was appalled with the way she spoke to him, but really he was _turned on._ In fact, he had never felt the same way with Marceline. Sure, he was physically attracted to her, but nothing else could get him off the same way a bitchy Blair Waldorf could. Little did he know, Blair went straight upstairs with butterflies in her abdomen. Whether those butterflies were in her stomach or her crotch is yet to be decided. Either way, behind closed doors, they both were acting like school kids who each had a massive crush on each other but couldn’t admit it to anyone. 

As he rode down the elevator, walked through the lobby, and sat in the back of the limo as Arthur took him back to the Upper West Side, he came up with a plan. Obviously, he still had feelings for Blair, whether that be in his heart or his dick, but he needed to find out if she still had feelings for him, for he was convinced they both had been lying to each other, themselves, and all of their friends and family. He decided to let Marceline go through with modeling for Blair, and if things went smoothly and Blair was genuinely just trying to be a professional business woman, then it would be safe to assume that she was done with Chuck once and for all, so he should just commit to Marceline and _actually_ put his past behind him. However, if Chuck was right and Blair was planning some sort of scheme against Marceline, then there would be no doubt in his mind that Blaur still had feelings for him. She did it with Eva and Raina because of her jealousy at him being in a relationship with another girl, what is to say that she won’t do the same with Marceline?

The real question that sits is this one: if Chuck confirms his suspicions about Blair’s feelings, what will he even fucking do about it?


	23. I Don't Think We Should Meddle With Chuck and Blair

Although Nate had spent his entire Christmas vacation with his fiancée, he could not help but continually think about the blonde bombshell he’s known his whole life (and lost his virginity to). His feelings for Serena were not as transparent as Chuck’s were for Blair, but he had to make sure to be discrete about them. Unlike Chuck, Nate actually _loved_ his current significant other. When it came to Serena, he just happened to have feelings for her, too. Everyone knew that Chuck only had feelings for Blair, they just acted like he didn’t. _Especially Chuck and Blair._

In an effort to squash his feelings for Serena, Nate decided to go about it in an unconventional way: friendship. He sat and thought about why Chuck and Blair could never get over each other, and he came to the conclusion that they could never get over each other _because_ they were constantly trying so hard to get over each other. In attempting to pull themselves farther apart, they only drove each other closer together. So, in order to avoid that Serena, Nate decided to treat Serena like a friend in hopes of her truly _staying_ a friend. 

They were on a stroll in central park on an unusually warm January day when Nate tested out his friendship theory with Serena. 

“You know, I don’t think I realized how much I missed New York City until I officially came back,” Serena said, her breath only slightly showing in the air as she spoke. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to leave,” Nate admitted. He kept his head down as he walked with one hand in his pocket, the other holding a cup of coffee. 

Serena cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. “What about California? From the sounds of it, Karolina is leaning toward choosing Stanford.”

Nate swayed his head back and forth as he thought of what he was going to say next. “It’s not like I have to go wherever she goes.”

“But… you guys are getting married. Don’t you think that would be a bit strange if you decided to do long distance with your fiancée when you are _more_ than financially capable of moving to be with her?” 

“I mean, we’re engaged, but that doesn’t mean we have to get married right away.” This answer was much different from what he told Chuck at Thanksgiving, for he and Karolina were looking to get married that summer. _Does Karolina even know he’s feeling this way?_ He took a sip of his coffee as he waited for Serena to reply, and was slightly relieved when she steered the conversation in a bit of a different direction. 

“Speaking of getting engaged, I was surprised to find that Marceline returned from her and Chuck’s holiday with a bare finger.” Serena was actually dying to know what Nate’s thoughts on the situation were, for she desperately hoped he secretly hoped Chuck and Blair would just put everything behind them and admit they wanted to be together. 

“I was, too. Karolina and I were _sure_ that he was finally going to do it. I thought he would have found _the ring_ over Christmas and would pop the question before they got back.” They walked a few more paces before Nate asked, “Was Marceline disappointed?”

Serena let out a sigh. “She told me that she wasn’t, but I know her. I could tell that she was a bit bummed out. Also, I don’t think the fact that Blair is back helps very much. I think Marceline sees her as a bit of a threat to her and Chuck’s relationship.”

“Well, is she?”

“What do you mean?” Serena responded to Nate’s question with a question. 

“I mean, your best friends with Blair, so do _you_ think that Blair serves a legitimate threat?” Serena didn’t say anything, much to Nate’s annoyance. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”

“Well, there’s a difference between what I think and what Blair has told me.”

“Go on.”

Serena finished off her bone dry cappuccino and tossed the cup into a trash can before she continued her conversation with Nate. “Blair has told me that there is nothing between her and Chuck, and as much as I want to believe her, I just _don’t.”_ She looked to Nate to see if he wanted to chime in, but he only seemed like he wanted to keep listening to her speak. “I mean, they’re _Chuck_ and _Blair._ I know it’s been a long time since, you know, _everything_ , but there’s a part of me that really just wants them to put their pride aside and just jump back in, you know? And then there’s another part of me that feels _awful_ for thinking that because, right next to Blair, Marceline is my _best friend,_ and I know how much she loves Chuck and all I want is for her to be _happy._ I’m between such a rock and a hard place here!” Serena lifted her arms and dropped them back to her sides, her hands slapping back down on her coat.

“No, I completely understand. Marceline is a _great girl_ , and I really think she’s been great for Chuck, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I want them to be together. And you know what is crazy? I didn’t think _any_ of this until Thanksgiving. I feel like, if Blair never got divorced and came back, we would all feel so different. Chuck and Marceline would be engaged by now, me and Karolina would be planning our wedding…” 

Serena decided to ignore Nate’s statement about his relationship with Karolina. “Maybe there’s a reason Blair and I came back. _Maybe the universe is trying to tell us something_ , like that Chuck and Blair should really be together.” _Or, maybe this is crazy, but the universe might also be trying to tell Serena and Nate something about their relationship, too._

“Whatever the universe may be trying to tell us, I don’t think we should meddle with Chuck and Blair,” Nate admitted. 

“Agreed. As much as I may think they still love each other, I don’t think it’s fair to Marceline that we do anything about it. Especially since, you know, we might be completely _wrong._ ”

“Yeah, I guess we should just let things run its course.”

“Yup.” They walked in silence for what seemed like an eternity before Serena spoke up again. “So, I guess we should just let whatever happens with Marceline and Karolina working with Waldorf Designs _run its course._ ”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that!” This slight shift in conversation topic perked Nate up a bit. “When Karolina came home and told me about it, I was a bit surprised. If I know anything about Blair Waldorf, it is that she always has a scheme up her sleeve.”

“Oh, I know, I have a feeling she’s planning something, but I don’t know _what_ , exactly. With Dorota back at her side, they’re capable of anything.” 

Nate laughed at the mention of Dorota. “I’m glad they’ve been reunited, though. Maybe Blair will surprise us and actually not do anything resembling a scheme.”

“I hope she does because I really do not want to be the one to clean up pieces of Marceline all over the wall when she explodes.”

A laugh escaped Nate again. “I have to admit, I am a bit worried for her and Karolina. If Blair is conceiving some horrid plan, I don’t know how well they would be able to handle it.”

“I always forget that some people aren’t just used to their loved ones doing awful things to them all the time!” Serena said, for she was the one laughing this time. “As horrible as some of the things were that we all did to each other, I can’t help but think it made me immune to everything. It really gave us all thick skin, huh?”

“Oh, for sure, but we’re all still standing here, and we’re all still friends, if that’s what you want to call Chuck and Blair at the moment. And since we’re all still friends after that shit show I would call our high school and college years, then I think it’s safe to say that we’re all going to be friends _forever._ ” 

_Oh, but how Nate wished to be much more than friends with Serena!_


	24. And Bring Some Nair

The day had come for Serena, Marceline, and Karolina to model for Waldorf Designs, and everything seemed normal. Perfectly normal. 

“I really hope you’re not planning something,” Serena said as someone twirled around her as they styled her hair. “I don’t think it would be fair to go to war with _amateurs_.”

Blair snorted as she crossed her arms across her chest and shifted her body weight to her right foot. “I think it’s absolutely preposterous that you would think I would even _consider_ any type of sabotage when it comes to _my job._ I am a professional woman, Serena. Think of me asking her and her stupidly silky smooth ginger hair to model for me as a peace offering. Extending an olive branch, if you will.”

“Blair,” Serena said as she let out a sigh. “I don’t think you have ever _actually_ made peace with anyone. You _always_ have to have the last laugh.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, B. It would drive you _absolutely mental_ if you made amends with someone. You constantly crave revenge and humiliation, it’s just in your nature.” Serena paid no attention to Blair’s reaction, for she just fiddled with her freshly manicured nails as her golden locks were attended to. Serena didn’t even notice Blair walked away in a huff without responding. 

Although Blair truly had no intentions of scheming Marceline, Serena’s little speech changed her mind. _Might as well prove her right, huh, B?_

She called Dorota, who, of course, picked up within the first couple rings. “Dorota. Change of plans. I’m going to need you to get here _fast._ ” Blair ducked around a corner so that no one would hear her next sentence to her trusty maid. _“And bring some Nair.”_


	25. You're Just Going to Have to Shave It All Off

Marceline arrived at the photoshoot with Karolina by her side. Although Karolina wasn’t a professional model, she was a bit like Serena in the sense that she didn’t really have to try to be beautiful. Her Scandinavian lineage had a lot to do with this, of course. She deviated from Serena in that Karolina was a very intelligent girl with a good head on her shoulders. Not that Serena wasn’t intelligent, but everyone agreed that she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. But then again, even the brainy Karolina was no match for intelligence or wit with Blair Waldorf. Actually, no one was. 

The two girls were greeted by a member of the Waldorf Designs team and were whisked away to have their hair and makeup done. 

“Marceline! Hello!” Blair greeted as she approached the chair the redhead was sitting in, the fakest smile stretched across her porcelain skin. She leaned down and kissed Marceline on both of her cheeks, how French! “I’m so glad you took me up on my offer, I truly think this will be beneficial for the both of us.”

“Oh, if it isn’t, then I don’t know what will!” Marceline, now familiar with the ups and downs of Blair and Chuck’s past romantic relationship, had been paying extremely close attention to the tabloids over the past month. As much as she didn’t want to, she couldn’t help but give them her attention, especially when they mentioned her boyfriend’s name. There was gossip floating around the city that the ex-princess had left her royal husband for her ex lover, whether that be Nate or Chuck (although everyone knew only one of those men actually had a shot with Blair), and because of this, both her and Karolina’s names were also thrown into the mix. Although they were both already pretty well known within the New York social scene because of their infamous high society significant others, she noticed that more people approached her to speak with her and she was being talked about much more. She had always thought she loved the attention, she was a model after all, but lately the attention was feeling like too much, like she was under a magnifying glass and everyone was waiting for her relationship to publicly fall apart so that she or Karolina would be a laughingstock for ever thinking they had a chance with Chuck Bass or Nate Archibald in the first place. 

Blair moved and stood between Marceline and the mirror. She leaned against the counter and looked at Marceline for a moment, a pensive look on her face. “I just _adore_ your hair. I’ve seen some of your work, you can barely notice the split ends and oily roots.” 

Marceline decided to ignore Blair’s backhanded compliment (also, she wasn’t witty enough to come up with one to retort with on the fly). “Thank you! It’s my pride and joy. I don’t know who I would be if I didn’t have my long, red hair. I’ve _never_ colored it,” she admitted. 

“Oh, is that so? I could have sworn that was the same exact color I noticed on the front of some box dye.” Blair stood back up and walked around Marceline in her chair, her heels clicking on the ground as she twirled the fiery hair in her dainty hands. “I was thinking we would do a few different hairstyles for the shoot, you know, switch things up a bit. What do you think?”

Marceline was a bit creeped out by Blair’s behavior. “I think that whatever you think is best, Blair,” she said, not really meaning it because she only wanted this conversation to be over. 

Blair clapped her hands together. “Great! Angelo, let’s start getting _Miss Chastain_ ready for the shoot, huh?” The Italian hair stylist rushed to begin prepping the model and Blair walked away to meet Dorota in the coroner of the room so that no one would hear them. 

“Did you get the stuff? Did you get my text? Did you get the extra thing I told you to get?” Dorota nodded and opened the tiny bag she was holding. “Great, now listen carefully.”

“Listening carefully,” Dorota assured Blair. 

“Shortly, Angelo is going to take Marceline to wash her hair. Right now, I am going to need

you to go snatch the shampoo and conditioner bottles and put _both_ of these in _both_ bottles.”

“Oh, Miss Blair, but that will be so much!”

Blair’s finger shot up as she pointed it in Dorota’s face. “ _I don’t care._ I don’t want a single drop of product left in either of those bottles, do you hear me?” Dorota sheepishly nodded as she stared at her feet on the floor. “Alright. Now _shoo.”_

Not waiting to stay and watch Dorota take the bottles of shampoo and conditioner from next to the sink, Blair stepped away and began to tend to other aspects of the photoshoot: the clothes, the set, the models’ makeup, etc. 

Suddenly, a shriek echoed throughout the room they were occupying and Blair and Dorota immediately found each other’s eyes as they shifted their attention to the owner of the voice. Serena could recognize that shrill scream from anywhere. “Marceline?”

A crowd gathered around the once long, red haired model, who was dripping wet with water from the sink and the tears from her eyes. _“You!”_ she yelled at Angelo. _“You did this to me! How could you fucking do this to me?”_

“What’s going on?” Serena came running to see what was the matter. She nearly winced at the sight before her. 

“ _Look what he did to my fucking hair!”_ Marceline yelled at Serena before bursting into an uncontrollable sob. 

“Oh, my God,” Serena said under her breath. She couldn’t believe she was looking at Marceline Chastain, one of the most popular supermodels at the moment who was known for her long, red hair. Black mascara was dripping down her face as she continued to sob. “Guys, give her some space.” Everyone dispersed and Marceline was left with Serena, Karolina, and Blair surrounding her. 

“ _How could this have happened?!”_ she said in between sobs. The three girls didn’t know what to say. They didn’t think there was anything they could have possibly done to comfort her considering there were clumps of hair on her shoulders and the floor. With the hair that was left on her head, it could no longer be considered a natural red color, if red at all, for it was streaked with black. _It seems as if someone mixed Nair and black box dye into the shampoo and conditioner. Let’s just hope Marceline doesn't connect the dots between the conversation she had with Blair about half an hour prior and her now ruined hair. Blair should be fine, for Marceline wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Maybe that’s why she got along so well with Serena._

Blair decided to call it a day on the photoshoot and sent everyone home, but not before telling a distraught Angelo that he did nothing wrong and that he had nothing to worry about regarding his reputation as an in-demand hair stylist. _At least Blair did something good that day, too._

Marceline finally calmed down after she was finally alone with the three other girls. She stared at herself in the mirror and ran her fingers through her ruined hair, clumps falling out everytime she reached the end, which kept getting shorter and shorter. 

“Marcie, if you don’t stop messing with it right now, then you’re just going to have to shave it all off-” Karolina started. 

“ _Shave it all off?!”_ Marceline shot up out of her chair and got in Karolina’s face before returning to sobbing. “ _I’m not going to shave my fucking head, are you crazy?!”_ Karolina knew that Marceline was not trying to be rude, for she had just suffered a devastating loss to her beauty and, perhaps, her career. _“I’m going home, I can’t go out like this. I’ll just fucking call someone to the penthouse so that they can fix it there,”_ she angrily mumbled to herself as she gathered her things. She went to the coat rack, grabbed a random hoodie that was sitting on a hanger, and threw it over her head. Next, she rummaged through her purse and pulled out a pair of gigantic black sunglasses she always carried around for emergencies. She stomped over to the door, Serena and Karolina running frantically behind her to try and catch her. 

Blair was standing alone when Dorota quietly approached her from behind, nearly scraping her. “Jesus Christ, Dorota. I need to get you a bell.” 

“Here,” Dorota said as she handed Blair her phone. 

Blair took it from her and scrolled through the many, many photos Dorota had secretly taken of Marceline, including one video showcasing her total-diva meltdown. “Don’t do anything with these. At least, not yet. Now isn’t the time to strike again, this was good enough for now.”

“When do you think we strike next, Miss Blair?”

Blair thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. Let’s wait and see what a certain someone has to say about this.” _Oh, I wonder who that certain someone could be!_


	26. It Was a Tragic Mix-Up

Chuck was pacing around the living room of his penthouse at the hotel, worried about what may or may not happen at the photoshoot. His heart racing, his hands sweating. Suddenly, he was interrupted by the ding of the elevator followed by the entrance of three girls, two of them looking model ready and the third, well… not so much. “Oh, my God, what happened?”

Marceline had stopped crying in the car, but burst into sobs again when she made eye contact with Chuck. He looked at Serena and Karolina for an answer, for his girlfriend clearly wasn’t in the right headspace to give one. “It seems as if there was a leftover bottle of nair and hair dye and the hair stylist accidentally used them instead of shampoo and conditioner,” Karolina said. 

Chuck felt relief, for he was sick with worry that Blair had been the one responsible for Marceline’s appearance; however, he was a bit disappointed she actually hadn’t been the one to do it, especially since he told himself that, if she did, then that would be her telling him she still had feelings for him. 

“Yeah, that must have been what happened. It was a _tragic_ mix-up,” Serena said. Chuck looked at her when she spoke, but she avoided eye contact with him and looked at her feet as she rocked back and forth on her heels. Karolina didn’t know her well enough to be able to read Serena van der Woodsen subtext, but Chuck did. It seems he knew her too well, actually. He could tell by her body language that she was telling a complete lie, and the inflections in her voice only further confirmed his suspicions. He concluded that she knew something different from what Karolina was saying, but he needed to get her alone in order to get her to fess up. He couldn't risk Marceline or Karolina learning the truth, for Serena didn’t want them to know, or else she wouldn’t have lied just then. 

“ _I don’t know what I’m going to do!”_ Marceline cried as she sat on the couch. She kept running her fingers through her hair, which only caused more multicolored clumps to fall out. She would be lucky if her hair could be salvaged up to her chin, but that didn’t even include what she would be able to do about the color situation. “ _Can someone please stop standing around and fucking call Guillermo?!”_ She asked, though it sounded much more like a demand. Karolina grabbed her friend’s purse and began to root through it for her phone. Once she finally found it, she excused herself to the guest bedroom so that she could have a discussion with the hair stylist in private. 

“Marceline, please, calm down,” Chuck said as he sat down next to her. He went to touch her hair when she shot up and slapped his hand away. 

“ _Don’t touch me! Don’t touch it!”’_ she sobbed. 

Chuck looked to Serena for help. “I’m going to get her some water,” Serena said. She tilted her head to the right to signal to Chuck that she wanted him to follow her to the kitchen. He waited a few moments before meeting her at the fridge. 

“You don’t think-”

“Blair had anything to do with this? _Of course I do,”_ Serena whispered. She turned around to make sure Marceline or Karolina weren’t within earshot. “I can’t prove it, but this has Blair Waldorf written all over it.” 

Chuck felt his cheeks flush, so he looked to the ground to try and conceal it. “What should we do? Should we tell her?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think it would be wise to jump to conclusions about something like this.” Serena crossed her arms across her chest and leaned on the kitchen counter, shaking her head and chuckling. “Either way, this is _kind of_ funny.”

Chuck let out a little laugh. “Yeah, it kind of is.” They both stopped laughing and looked at each other. “We’re awful.”

“Yeah, but that’s why we’ve all been friends for so long.”

“You’re right. So what do you think Guillermo is going to do?”

Serena sighed. “I’m no hair stylist, but, I mean, what even _can_ you do? Her hair was almost down to her ass. I think she’ll be lucky to get away with a bob that looks semi-decent.”

“And what about the color?”

“I don’t know about that, either. Her hair was such an amazing natural color. I think it would be hard to replicate it. She might just need to finish the job and commit to a head of black hair.” 

“She would rather kill herself,” Chuck immediately said, to which Serena agreed with by nodding. Suddenly, Chuck’s tone changed, his voice growing softer and quieter. “I don’t want you tipping her off that it might have been Blair. And even if we confirm it was her, I don’t want Marcie to ever know.”

Serena was taken aback by Chuck’s sincerity. “Of course, Chuck. This stays between us.”

Karolina walked into the kitchen and updated Chuck and Serena. “Guillermo’s on his way. I might have sugarcoated how bad it really is, though.” 

Serena grabbed a glass and poured a glass of water. “Let’s get back in there and try to console her.” 

The three of them tiptoed back into the living room, which had suddenly become quiet. Chuck and Karolina stood a good distance away while Serena approached the crying supermodel on the couch, her face smeared with wet mascara. “Here, drink this.”

Marceline took a sip and sniffed her nose a few times. “What if I have to shave my head?” she said, so softly that Serena could barely hear her. 

“You’re not going to have to shave your head.”

“How do you know that?”

“Trust me, I know.” Marceline dropped into Serena’s arms and cried into her chest, like a child crying to their mother. 

Karolina and Chuck were watching the two friends when she nudged him with her elbow. “I think maybe you should go and give her some space. This is a girl thing, you can come back in a few hours. She’ll understand.” Chuck nodded and left the penthouse in a flash, not even stopping to say goodbye to Serena or his girlfriend. 

He got down to the lobby and debated on what he should do next. He couldn’t sit at the bar and wait, it wasn’t fun since he stopped drinking. He couldn’t go out to eat, he didn’t have a reservation anywhere. He hopped into the waiting limo and didn’t think when he said to Arthur, “Take me to the Waldorf Penthouse.” 

Chuck’s head was racing with thoughts the entire ride over to the Upper East Side. Sure, it was kind of funny, but that didn’t mean what Blair _probably_ did was alright. Should he be angry with her? What was he even going to say to her when he got there? Should he outright accuse her of what Serena and her think she did? What would he do if she denied everything? Should he believe and think it was a freak accident, or should he think she’s lying, which would allow him to continue to think that she still had feelings for him? Part of him was hoping she wouldn’t even be home. 

Time was moving too fast. Before he knew it, he was standing in the elevator as it ascended to the penthouse. His right foot was tapping against the ground, his hands clasped in front of his abdomen in anxiety. He took a few steps into the penthouse, looked around the ground floor for Blair, and, when he saw she wasn’t there, decided to head for the staircase, but he was intercepted by Dorota. “Mr. Chuck, what are you doing here?”

“Is Blair here?” he spoke as if he was out of breath. 

“Look, I don’t know what the fuck happened today, but I know that Blair was probably involved, and if she was, then it’s highly likely you were acting as her accomplice. Now, if you would just let me upstairs to speak with her-”

“I have no idea what you are referring to,” Dorota denied in her thick Polish accent. She pouted her lips and raised her eyebrows at him. He was about to speak again when they were interrupted by a voice at the top of the stairs. 

“Chuck?” Blair was making her way down, but stopped. Perhaps, she was hesitant out of fear. Not fear that Chuck would hurt her (whether that be physically or emotionally), but fear of getting caught for the cosmetic crime that she and Dorota committed earlier that day. “Dorota, leave us. You may go home.” Dorota looked at Blair in hesitation. “ _Go.”_ She gave in and Blair and Chuck waited until they were sure she was gone to continue their conversation. 

Blair descended the rest of the staircase and stood in front of her ex-boyfriend in the foyer, both of them tense in their body language. “Chuck, I know what happened today was awful, and I know that I’m the easiest person to blame, but-”

“Oh, save it, Blair,” Chuck snapped, causing Blair to straighten her posture. He could feel his body burning up. Whether from passion brewing from rage or lust, he couldn’t tell. “You may be able to fool everyone else, _but I know you._ I didn’t even have to be there to witness it to know that the blood is on your hands, Lady Waldorf.”

Blair gulped as Chuck spoke, and she (surprisingly) felt herself turned on a bit by the Macbeth reference, but she controlled herself, at least, for the time being. “You can’t prove _anything.”_

Chuck took a step toward her. “Why are you so adamant on denying it? What are you afraid of? Why are you being a coward? _Own up to it._ ”

Blair was offended, this time she took the step closer. “ _I’m not the coward here.”_

 _“_ You’re just afraid of admitting _why_ you did it.”

“I did it because _she deserved it.”_

“You did it because you still have feelings for me and you can’t stand to see me with someone else.”

 _“_ I haven’t had any feelings for you for nearly a decade, whether they be in romance or friendship.”

“Oh, so you _hate_ me?”

 _“_ I don’t think anyone else could _hate_ a person _more.”_

 _“_ You’d change your mind when you find out how much _I hate you, too.”_

They had taken so many steps closer to each other that the gap between them was practically nonexistent. They were so close they could feel the heat radiating off of each other’s bodies, could see each other’s chests rising and falling with every harsh breath. Chuck was towering over Blair, their brown eyes staring into each other’s as if they were mesmerized by the fire behind them. 

“I think it would be best if you left,” Blair said flatly. 

“I agree,” Chuck replied, but neither of them moved from where they were standing. They continued to stare at each other and act as if their feet were glued to the ground. 

Suddenly, two faces fused into one. The pairs of lips had clashed in a moment of passion, finally full after years of craving each other and curbing their appetites with the tastes of second-best. Their hands each gripped clumps of brown hair before traveling south, caressing every curve of the bodies they knew better than their own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Paid homage to the seventh episode of season four with this chapter! Let me know what you think about the ending of this one...


	27. Happy Birthday

Blair was lying on her right side in the bed, longingly staring out at the city just outside of her window. It was dark now, for the only light in the room was from a few candles she had lit earlier before Chuck arrived at the penthouse. She glanced at the clock expecting the night to still be young, but she was surprised to find that it was well past midnight. 

She felt sick to her stomach. She and Chuck hadn’t discussed it, but she assumed that he had not broken up with Marceline and was still very much her boyfriend. She felt sick at the thought of being the other woman, she felt sick at the thought that it was late at night and a girl was sitting at home wondering where her boyfriend was and when he was going to be back, she felt sick at the thought that she knew what it felt like to be cheated on and here she being used to cheat with.

Her mind wandered and thought about all of the horrible things she had done in her life, all of the horrible things she had done to her best friend, all of the horrible things she had done to her significant others. She felt so ashamed thinking about how she had ruined a girl’s self esteem and slept with that same girl’s boyfriend all within a span of a few hours. She knew she wasn’t the only person in the wrong, for she wasn’t the one in a committed relationship; however, she couldn’t deny that what she did was ethically wrong. The only thing that could make her feel better at that moment would be finding out that Chuck felt just as awful as she did, if not more. 

She continued to lay in the silence and stare out the window. All she wanted to do was fall asleep and forget everything that just happened, but how could she? How could she face him after this? How could she face Serena or Marceline or Karolina or Nate or even Dorota after this? 

The silence was suddenly disturbed by the sound of the bed sheets rustling. After a few moments, the mattress felt lighter, for she deduced that Chuck had gotten up out of the bed. She tried to muster up the courage to turn over and have a serious, adult conversation with him about the implications of them sleeping together, but she felt paralyzed. All she could do was pretend to be asleep and wait for him to say something first. 

She stared out of the window for so long that she assumed he had left without saying anything. Part of her wished that he would have just left and pretended that nothing happened, but they both knew they couldn’t do that. “Blair,” he whispered. He reached out and touched her shoulder with his hand, slightly nudging her. When she didn’t stir, he figured she was asleep, but he didn’t want to wake her up. He was about to turn to leave in disappointment when she flipped her body around in the bed. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to clear my head enough to successfully do that,” she replied, guilt glistening in her eyes that were barely illuminated by the tiny lavender-scented flames around the room. 

He turned his gaze away from her and shifted it to his feet. “Me, too.”

She stood up in the bed and crossed her legs underneath her. Neither of them said anything for a few moments, but Blair didn’t mind. As ashamed as she was, she still enjoyed his presence. She missed being able to sit with someone and not feel obligated to say or do anything. She never felt that sense of comfortability with anyone but him, not even with the man she was married to for the better part of a decade. She wondered if Chuck felt the same way, but she had no idea where his head was at. Not wanting to guess anymore, she decided she would just find out for herself. “What does this mean, Chuck?”

He was surprised at her boldness, but grateful she asked so that he didn’t have to. “I don’t know, Blair.”

That answer wasn’t good enough for Blair, it wouldn’t be good enough for _anybody._ “Did you mean what you said?”

He knew she was referring to the harsh words they said to each other before they shifted gears from yelling at each other to having sex. “Did you?”

Blair didn’t know how to respond because she didn’t know if she meant them or not, and she knew that Chuck wasn’t sure, either. “You have a girlfriend,” Blair reminded him. 

“I know,” he said with a sigh as he plopped back down on the bed, his back facing Blair. “I feel awful.”

Blair silently breathed a sigh of relief. “I think this should stay between us.”

“Is that what you want?” Chuck turned his head around to look at Blair in the eyes. For a moment, she thought she could see in his face that he was hurt. 

“There is a very beautiful, very upset girl with hair that looks like God-knows-what right now sitting in your apartment wondering where you are and when you’re going to return, and _she loves you._ I think you need to go back to her right now.” 

Chuck took in what Blair was saying to him and he knew that she was right. She was always right. But he couldn’t help but feel his heart break at Blair basically telling him that she didn’t want to be with him, or at least that she didn’t think the two of them should be together. “We’re not engaged.”

“I know,” Blair responded quickly, but her tone more said, “But perhaps you should be.” 

Chuck stood up from his seat on the edge of the bed and buttoned his jacket. He began to panic when they heard someone’s heels clicking up the stairs, for they assumed it was Serena. “I should get going.”

“Go through the bathroom and leave through her bedroom,” Blair whispered. “She’s going to come in here first.”

And just as Chuck asked, “How can you be sure?” Serena knocked on Blair’s bedroom door. They looked at each other for a moment as if they both just wanted to tell each other that they still loved each other, but since neither of them did and neither of them wanted to get caught by Serena, Chuck started toward the bathroom. 

Just as he was about to be gone for good, Blair stopped him. “Wait.” He turned around, a look of slight hope on his face. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

Chuck looked at the clock that was sitting on the nightstand behind Blair and realized that it was almost two in the morning, therefore it was, in fact, his twenty-eighth birthday. “Thank you. Goodbye.” 

The bathroom door quietly shut just as Serena slowly opened Blair’s. “Sorry, I was… half asleep,” Blair lied. 

“Did I wake you?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Blair knew she was acting weird. She tried not to act weird, but Serena knew her well enough that she should be able to tell that Blair was acting weird. But she didn’t ask. 

“So, I just left Marceline.”

“How is her hair?” 

Serena was surprised by the sound of sincerity in Blair’s voice. Little did she know that Blair genuinely felt bad for the model, though for the exact reason she was kept in the dark. Only Chuck and Blair knew the real answer. “It’s short. And no longer red.”

“ _Ouch.”_

“Yeah, ouch.” Serena collapsed onto the bed and sprawled her body across the duvet. She noted that it smelled faintly of cologne, and then she noticed the lit candles all throughout the room. “Blair, is someone here?” she asked, pointing to the closed bathroom door. 

“No, don’t be ridiculous.”

“You’re sporting a sex glow, don’t even try to lie to me.”

Blair knew that she wasn’t going to get Serena to back off until she admitted she had someone over. “ _Fine,_ someone _was_ here, but I made them go home.”

“Who?” Serena was desperate to know. 

“I don’t know, some guy I met at The Oak Room tonight.” Blair was impressed with how well she was lying. 

Serena raised her eyebrows at Blair. “So, was he hot? Are you going to see him again?”

Blair groaned at Serena’s interrogation. “ _Serena!”_

“What? Sue me for being interested in your life!” she laughed. She sat up in the bed and pulled a piece of stray brown hair out of Blair’s face. “I’m just glad you’re getting back out there. You’re still young, you know.”

“I feel as if I have lived a thousand lifetimes already,” Blair said as she collapsed back onto her huge silk pillows. 

“I find that a bit hard to believe considering _you’re still acting like a child._ ” This grabbed Blair’s attention. “We know sabotaged Marceline.”

Her anxiety spiked at the thought of Marceline knowing who was responsible for her ruined hair. “We?” 

“Chuck and I.” Blair practically shuddered at the sound of his name. “Don’t act surprised. We didn’t need evidence to know that you caused that massacre.”

“Does she know?”

“No,” Serena started. “And Chuck doesn’t want her to know.” Blair tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at her friend, to which she only responded with a shrug. “It’s really late, I’m going to bed.”

Serena stood up and Blair pulled the covers up more to cover herself. “Goodnight.”

“Why did you do it?” Serena asked before she was totally out of the room. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been jealous of one of Chuck’s girlfriends. And we both know that your jealousy doesn't mean _nothing_ _._ ” Blair didn’t respond, but she didn’t need to, for they both already knew the answer. 


	28. Update

Hey, guys. 

So sorry it's been so long since I've added a new chapter. I know I was doing really well with posting a new chapter every day or at least every other day, and now it's been almost a month. 

I've just been super busy, college is getting the better of me. But the semester is almost over, and I promise I'll get back to posting soon. If a new chapter isn't added within the next week, then it'll definitely be up within the first week of December. 

Thanks for being so patient! 

In the meantime, why don't you guys leave comments telling me what you'd like to see happen in the plot next? I think that could be really fun! :)


	29. One Fell Swoop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Long time, no see!
> 
> So, I have about a month of free time (woohoo!), so I am going to try and post every day or every other day! 
> 
> Since the spring semester doesn't start for over a month, I should be able to get ahead and write multiple chapters at a time. That way, I won't be leaving you guys hanging like I did for over a month! 
> 
> In the meantime, keep commenting what you do or do not want to happen in the plot! And in terms of teh actual Gossip Girl... stay tuned ;)

Chuck hopped into his limo that was waiting for him at the curb. Arthur shut the door behind him and made his way to the driver’s seat, to which he shifted the car into drive and began to make his way back to the Upper West Side. 

As his left leg bobbed up and down out of anxiety, Chuck stared out of the window and admired the colorful flashing lights that shot past, pondering exactly how he was going to explain why he was arriving home so late. He could not say that he passed time at a bar, for he had been sober for so long at this point. The thought of going to a bar never even crossed his mind, actually. 

It’s not like he could say he went for a walk in Central Park, for, considering it was now January, it was much too dark and much too cold. 

As if coming up with an alibi wasn’t stressful enough, Chuck then realized Marceline might be suspicious of his appearance and smell. He whipped his phone out and opened the front camera so that he could try his best to fix his hair. Initially, he thought it didn’t look obvious that he was coming home from a romantic rendezvous with his ex-girlfriend, but his sex hair said otherwise. He tried his best to fix his hair, but soon gave up. He looked down at his waist and realized how disheveled he looked, for it was obvious that he was undressed and got dressed again in a hurry. 

Chuck felt his heart rate begin to quicken, his palms suddenly felt sweaty. _Why am I so paranoid about getting caught?_ he thought to himself. He just slept with the girl he’s been in love with for over a decade, the girl he’s been pining over, the girl he’s been trying to forget after all of these years, and he’s worried about a girl he doesn’t even think he loves catching him? 

He continued to think about why he was feeling this way. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that he’s not afraid of losing Marceline. Rather, he’s afraid of losing everything in one fell swoop. Marceline has been a decent distraction over the past couple of years, but that doesn’t mean he loves her, it means he loves the idea of her, the idea of having someone that loves him by his side. 

Even though he’s been committed to monogamy for quite a few years at this point, he is still surprised by his dedication to one girl and one girl only. He’s _Chuck Bass_ , he’s a young, hot billionaire who could sleep with practically any woman or man he wanted to sleep with and instead he has chosen a life with one single partner (or that life has chosen him). 

The uncertainty of his relationship with Blair is what holds him back from completely ending things with Marceline. Although he is now certain that Blair is the love of his life and that he will never be completely happy with anyone else, he is not certain that she feels the same way about him. And he’s not ready to throw away the life he’s been contentedly living since Blair left him in the dust more than seven years ago. 

Arthur is approaching The Empire and, since he isn’t ready to destroy his relationship with Marceline, he needs to come up with a reason for his appearance and his absence. The limo brakes to a soft stop and someone opens the door for him. He steps out and enters his hotel and lets out a defeated sigh. 

And for the first time in years, he finds himself heading straight for the bar instead of the elevator.


	30. Some Scotch

The elevator to the penthouse at The Empire dinged and heavy footsteps struck the wooden floor, waking Marceline up from the bed. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and squinted, but she could not make out the silhouette outside of the door. “Chuck?” 

Just as her boyfriend’s name left her mouth, she heard a loud thud followed by a groan. Marceline shot out of the bed and flipped the lights on in the living room only to find Chuck struggling to get up from the floor next to the coffee table, a few smashed picture frames and a broken vase adorning the floor. “Go back to bed,” he mumbled. 

She ignored him and went to go help him up. Using all of her strength, she slipped her arms underneath his shoulders and shimmied him up on the couch. He collapsed onto his back and let out a few breaths that were heavy with alcohol. “Chuck, have you been drinking?” Chuck kept his eyes closed as he massaged his temple. “ _ Chuck. _ ”

The concern in Marceline’s voice brought Chuck back to reality. Well, at least a little bit. “I just had… some scotch… down at the bar.”

“You smell like you had more than “some scotch,” Chuck.” She stopped talking to take a moment to actually look at him. His hair was a mess, his shirt wasn’t tucked in anymore. He looked like absolute shit. “Chuck, I don’t understand, what’s going on?” Marceline realized that this is the first time she is seeing Chuck once, something she thought she would never see in her life considering he got sober before they got together. She never thought she would have to deal with a situation like this. She thought she could just encourage his sobriety, be a loving girlfriend, and everything would be happily ever after, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore (especially since the recent return of a certain ex-girlfriend). 

“Nothing’s wrong, you should go back to bed. I’m fine,” Chuck said as he began to sit up on the couch. Marceline began to rub his back when he took note of the look on his face. Before she could do anything, he was throwing up in the living room. 

“Oh, my God…”

\---

Chuck woke up to a bright sun shining straight into his face. He flipped his body so that his face was pressed into the couch cushion and let out a groan. Suddenly, the couch dipped from the body of another person sitting down on it. 

“Chuck?” Marceline’s sweet, soft voice asked. She reached out and gently shook his left shoulder. He turned back over and yawned. 

“Good morning,” he said as he sat up and pecked her on the cheek as if he didn’t cheat on her the night before. 

“Here, have some food and some coffee.” She pushed a tray of breakfast goodies toward him, but he didn’t seem interested. 

“Thanks, but I don’t think I’m up for anything to eat or drink right now.” He looked away from her and dropped his face into his hands. “I drank a bit last night.” 

Marceline let out a playful, non judgemental laugh. “I think “a bit” is an understatement, but I’m just glad you’re okay now.” Neither of them said anything for a moment. “What happened, Chuck? Why did you relapse? You know you can tell me anything.”

Chuck rolled his eyes as he fixed his posture and rubbed his eyes. “I barely relapsed. I just had some scotch to kill time, that’s all.”

“You threw up all over the floor, Chuck. Do you even remember that?” He didn’t. “Did something happen that caused you to turn to drinking?” 

“Nothing  _ turned  _ me to drinking,” he snapped, startling her a bit. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t speak to you like that. But Karolina told me to give you girls some space yesterday, so I left and had some stuff to drink. I apologize for waking you up when I got home last night, I wasn’t trying to, believe me.”

“You’re acting like everything is fine, but I’m worried. You’re making me nervous. I’ve never seen you like that before.”

“And you never will again, I promise. I have no interest in drinking again, especially any time soon. I actually feel like shit.” He let out a slight laugh, but she didn’t find anything amusing. Her green eyes began to well with tears, and before he knew it, she was sobbing on the couch. “Marceline, please, stop crying. There’s nothing to be upset about.” 

He sat down next to her and tried to hug her and console her, but she just pushed him away. “You better not drink again, Chuck. You’ve been sober for so long, it’s idiotic to throw all of that progress away just to, what? Kill time?” She turned away from him and wiped her eyes. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some errands to run.” 

She threw on her coat, grabbed her purse, and practically ran out of the penthouse. Chuck was still so out of it nearly ten hours after getting drunk that he didn’t even notice how his girlfriend’s beautiful, long red hair was now styled in a bleach blonde pixie cut. 

But he did notice that she failed to wish him a happy birthday, he did notice how she has absolutely no clue about him cheating on her with Blair, and he did notice how he definitely  _ did  _ have an interest in drinking again. 

_ What could be the harm?  _ he thought to himself. Although he felt like shit, he did recognize how he missed getting sloshed, coming home, passing out, waking up the next afternoon, and repeating. And what better way is there to celebrate a Chuck Bass birthday than by getting as high a fucking kite and hammered beyond belief?


	31. You Don't Think This Has Anything to Do With...

Nate was in a deep sleep when he was woken up by Karolina gently shaking his shoulder. “Nate? Nate?” 

He rolled over and groaned. “Why? What is it?”

“Your phone is ringing.” Nate ignored her and the ringing phone and promptly fell back to sleep. “Fine, I guess I’ll answer it…” 

“Karolina?” 

Karolina stood up in the bed as she realized who was calling. “Serena? Why are you calling so early?” Nate heard his fiancée speaking to his ex-girlfriend, causing him to shoot awake. 

“Can I speak to Nate, please?” Karolina didn’t respond before handing the phone to the groggy golden boy sitting up next to her.

“Serena, is everything alright?” He was obviously concerned, yet completely baffled as to what reason she would have for calling at such an ungodly hour. 

“Did you know Chuck started using again?” Nate was taken completely off guard about this question. This is when he realized he hadn’t seen much of or talked to Chuck within the last few weeks. His heart dropped even further when he realized he completely brushed over his best friend’s birthday, which was almost a month ago. “Nate?” 

“Yeah, sorry,” he said with a sigh. “I’m going to be completely transparent, Serena, no, I didn’t know. How do you know?”

Serena scoffed. “Marceline just mentioned it to me in passing.  _ Can you believe that?  _ She was acting like it was no big deal! I mean, I guess she doesn’t really know exactly how bad it was because the only Chuck she has known has been sober Chuck, but you think she would be smart enough to recognize that him breaking his sobriety is something that is not to be taken lightly! I mean, she knows how proud we have been of him, especially since he has been doing so well for such a long time now. I can’t-”

“Whoa, Serena, take a breath and calm down,” Nate said to cut her off of her rant. “I agree, it’s irresponsible, but what exactly did she say?”

“She said that he came home absolutely plastered the night her hair got fucked up and that he’s been getting drunk and high nearly everyday since. Are you sure you didn’t know?”

“I feel awful, but I really didn’t know. I’ve been pretty busy these past few weeks, I haven’t gotten around to catching up with him.” They both sat in silence for a few moments before Nate spoke again. “You don’t think this has anything to do with…”

“I don’t know. It’s possible,” Serena finished. “I mean, I don’t really think it’s a coincidence that Blair comes back and Chuck falls off the wagon.”

“I agree. So, what do you think we should do?” 

“I think he just needs to be snapped back to reality. I think that the only reason that Marceline said he’s been doing it so often for the past few weeks is because no one has tried to help him yet. I think we just need to stage an intervention, encourage his sobriety, and then he’ll be back on the road to abstinence.”

“Do we invite her?” Nate questioned. 

“I think we’ll only have to utilize her if he’s resistant. She’ll be our last resort,” Serena said before hanging up. 

_ Just wait until Gossip Girl gets a hold of this piece of juicy information... _


	32. Update #2

Hi, guys. 

Sorry for being M.IA. again. I could lie and say that I've just been really busy, but that's not the case. 

I was really looking forward to finishing the semester and having a ton of time to put into continuing and finishing this story, but it's been difficult for me to find the motivation to do so. 

I really want to keep writing, I really do. I think about what I want to happen in the plot every single day, but I can never get the energy to actually act on my thoughts. 

Most important of all, looking back, I am actually really unhappy with how I have written the first thirty-odd chapters. Every single chapter is short and consumed by pure dialogue, and I really do not want to be that type of writer. Now, I am not totally to blame for that, for I am still merely a beginner. My lack of experience in writing is definitely something to consider, but it doesn't get me totally off the hook. 

In the meantime, if I find the motivation, I will go back and try to rewrite what I have already published (without changing major plot lines, of course).

Again, I'm really sorry. I actually feel awful. 

Who knows? Maybe I'll find some inspiration and spend an entire day writing... but for now, I'll do my best to edit the previous chapters.


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